


Shawn and Gus: Murder at the Book Club

by trixietru



Category: Psych
Genre: Case Fic, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 10:52:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2188998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trixietru/pseuds/trixietru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a member of Gus’s book club dies suddenly, Shawn and Gus are on the case! (Written for the Psych Case Fic Challenge)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A huge THANK YOU to Teragram for creating the Psych Case Fic Challenge (and happy birthday!)! Without it, I don’t know that I ever would have gotten around to writing this story, and on a completely selfish note, I’m glad that I did because it was ridiculously fun to write.
> 
> And a second, equally huge THANK YOU to Moodilylit for the amazing artwork she created for this story. When she first asked me what kind of art I wanted, I mentioned old Hardy Boys books as being an inspiration for the kind of tone I wanted for the title, and she took that idea and made this awesome vintage mystery (with a Psych twist) artwork. This is the first time that I’ve worked with an artist for a story, and it was such a great experience. She was totally patient with my terrible procrastination, and months ago, when she saw the rough draft of this story her enthusiasm and encouragement gave me a much needed boost. PLEASE CHECK OUT ALL OF THE ART SHE DID FOR THIS STORY [Here!](http://by-moodilylit.livejournal.com/17213.html) and let her know how awesome she is.

Gus had just opened his mouth to ask what the others thought about Offred and the commander playing Scrabble together when Hazel Kershner clutched her throat, gasped for breath, and collapsed face-first into the cheese platter that Callie had bought for their meeting (which Gus privately thought was a bit weak; there wasn’t even any brie). Callie shrieked, Mason dropped his wine glass, and Winston jumped out of his seat and knelt beside Hazel.

“Oh my god,” he gasped, “I think she’s dead.”

Gus was as shocked as his fellow book club members, but his time as part owner of a detective agency had instilled in him the protocol to follow when presented with a dead body; still, he sighed as he pulled out his phone. Maybe it was his overactive imagination, or the fact that she had seemed perfectly healthy when he had spoken to her earlier, but the suddenness of Hazel’s collapse had him suspicious that she’d been poisoned, which meant that he was going to have to call in Shawn as well as the police. So much for his one night a month of doing something civilized and grown-up.

“Let me get this straight,” Shawn said an hour later, looking around Callie and Winston’s neat living room, “you meet with these people every month to talk about…what? Chick lit?” He plucked the well-worn copy of _The Handmaid’s Tale_ out of Gus’s hands and flipped through the pages, dislodging all of Gus’s carefully placed color-coded post-its with his notes.

“Shawn! You’re messing up my discussion points!”

Shawn had arrived right before Lassiter and Juliet did, and in his customary Shawn-like fashion had taken in the sight of the body and the scene of the crime—assuming there was a crime—with a few sweeping glances. Now that poor Hazel was being taken away and the cops were questioning the other club members, he was free to make fun of Gus’s intellectual pursuits.

“Your _discussion points_? Oh, Gus. Buddy. You’re never going to get a girlfriend this…huh,” Shawn paused, looking around the room at Callie, at Sofia, at Mason, then swung back to Gus and hissed “This place is full of hotties! Have you been holding out on me? Do you come here so you can have the pick of the litter without having to compete with me?”

Gus snatched his book back and glared at Shawn. “There are so many things wrong with what you just said that I don’t even know where to start. First of all, I come here because it’s intellectually stimulating, something I need since I spend most of my free time with you.”

Shawn’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Wait, is that an insult or a compliment? Like, are you saying that I’m so intellectually stimulating that you need outside assistance in order to keep up with me, or are you saying that I’m so dumb that you have to seek out intelligent companionship elsewhere?”

“It was an insult, Shawn.”

“Got it,” Shawn said nodding. “You need to be a little clearer. Okay, go on.”

“Second of all,” Gus continued, as if he hadn’t been interrupted, “I have not been ‘holding out on you.’ I told you that I attend a book club meeting every month, and you told me that you didn’t want to hear about my nerd club for nerds.”

“Yeah, but that was before I knew that we were talking about hot nerds. That’s an entirely different species.”

“Third of all Shawn, I’m insulted that you would think that the only reason I come here is to meet attractive women.”

“I don’t think it’s the only reason. I know you can’t resist a good cheese platter.”

They were interrupted by Sofia, who came over and threw her arms around Gus’s neck. “Can you believe this happened, Gus? Poor Hazel!”

Gus patted her on the back and tried not to pay any attention to Shawn, who was giving him a thumbs up. They were joined by Mason, who was shaking his head sadly.

“How could this have happened?”

“That’s what I’m here to find out,” Shawn said.

“I thought that was what the cops were here to find out,” Mason replied, giving Shawn a frankly appreciative once-over. “Who are you?”

Shawn preened at the attention. “I am Shawn Spencer, Head Psychic for the Santa Barbara police department, beef jerky connoisseur, and dilettante archeologist.” He put his hand to his head, closed his eyes, and added dramatically, “The spirit of Stephen King sent me here because…”

He paused and swiveled quickly towards Gus. “What was her name?” he whispered frantically.

“Hazel,” Gus muttered under his breath, and Shawn turned back to Mason.

“…because a great injustice has occurred in the sanctity of this book club! Hazel was murdered.”

Mason frowned. “Stephen King isn’t dead, so how could his spirit be contacting you?”

“Dude, come on. If anyone alive could psychically communicate information about murders, wouldn’t it be Stephen King?”

They were joined by Juliet and Lassiter, who pointedly ignored Shawn in favor of Gus. “You were here when it happened, Guster?”

“Yes. We had just wrapped up our discussion on the symbolism of flowers in _The Handmaid’s Tale_ when Hazel started gasping for breath and collapsed.”

“New theory,” Shawn interrupted. “She was actually bored to death.”

Lassiter continued to ignore him. “Did you know her well? Had she been ill, or did she have any health problems?”

Not appreciating Lassiter’s inattention, Shawn sidled up to him and put his hand against Lassiter’s face, which earned him a glare. “No, no, no,” Shawn declared. “I’m sensing that her health was just fine until she got here…it was something she ate…no, no! Something she drank. She drank something that no one else did, didn’t she?”

Gus tried to hide the fact that he was mildly impressed; even after all these years, he still didn’t completely understand how Shawn picked up on the details that he did. “Yeah, Hazel didn’t drink alcohol. The rest of us usually have wine at the meetings, but she always brought her own herbal tea bags.”

Strangely, Lassiter hadn’t swatted Shawn’s hand away yet. Shawn didn’t move either, wondering how long Lassie would allow the contact to continue. This was a recent development, the way Lassiter no longer pushed him away immediately with extreme prejudice; lately, he had been allowing the moments when Shawn groped him during a “vision” to linger. Shawn liked it. He only hoped that his palm wasn’t sweaty.

“O’Hara, make sure we get the mug she used and any tea she had on her into evidence. Get your hand off of me, Spencer, I’m working. What else can you tell me about her, Guster?”

“She was an accountant. She’s married, but her husband travels a lot for work. I think she said earlier that he was out of town this week.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Sofia confirmed, sniffling, still clinging to Gus (he didn’t mind). “He’s in Omaha at some kind of sales meeting.”

“We’ll need to contact him,” Lassiter said to Juliet, who nodded as she took notes.

“I’m sensing,” Shawn said loudly, “that she had enemies. Is that right, Gus?”

Gus did not like speaking ill of the dead, but Mason apparently didn’t have the same qualms. “She could be kind of a bitch sometimes,” he said. “It was one of the things I liked most about her.”

“She had strong opinions,” Gus said diplomatically.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Juliet said with a frown in Mason’s direction.

“No, there’s not,” Gus agreed, “but she could occasionally be strident in how she presented those opinions. But she also had a great sense of humor and she was amazingly smart.”

“She could be kind of mean,” Sofia said in a small voice, still sniffling, adding “I can’t believe this happened.” Gus patted her on the back soothingly, wondering how crass it would be to make a move on Sofia when Hazel was barely cold. He had been interested in her for months, but this was the first time she had ever seemed to reciprocate his interest. Well, something good should come from such a tragedy, he reasoned to himself, and surely Hazel wouldn’t have begrudged him some happiness.

Shawn nodded, his suspicions confirmed. “I’m seeing her sipping tea and giving you all judgey judgmental looks while you got snockered and talked about dirty books. Yes, that’s it Lassie,” he said, pointing to Lassiter, who was radiating disapproval. “That’s exactly the way she looked at the rest of you.”

“That’s amazing,” Mason said. “Well, not the part about dirty books. She wasn’t a prude. But she came from a family of alcoholics, and she didn’t approve of even social drinking. How could you possible know that?”

Shawn touched his temple dramatically. “Psychic.”

“Interesting,” Mason said, stepping a little closer to Shawn. “So, can you tell me what I’m thinking right now?”

Shawn gave him a flirty little grin. “Not in mixed company.”

“Oh, you are good,” Mason said. “Why have you never come to book club with Gus before?”

“Spencer never progressed past _Go, Dog, Go_ ,” Lassiter said snidely. “Is there anything else you can tell me about the victim?”

Mason shrugged. “Unless it’s important that her favorite writer was Margaret Atwood, then no.”

Lassiter shoved a business card at him. “Call me if you think of anything actually relevant. In the meantime, if this is a poisoning then everyone here is a suspect, so don’t leave town.”

“Why would I want to leave when there are so many interesting things to do right here in Santa Barbara?” Mason asked, his gaze still on Shawn, who looked bemused.

“Wow,” Gus muttered under his breath, not impressed by Mason’s lack of subtlety. He focused his attention back on Sofia, who was still holding on to him. “Would you like me to drive you home, Sofia? I can stay as long as you like, if you don’t want to be alone.”

“You’re so sweet! Thank you, Gus, I would really appreciate that.”

“Gus!” he heard Shawn call after him as he headed for the door with Sofia, “you can’t go! We have a case!”

“No you don’t,” Lassiter said. “Technically, Guster is also a suspect. The Chief will never hire you to work on a case that you’re personally involved with.”

“But Lassie!” Shawn started to argue, only to be cut off by Juliet.

“Carlton, you don’t really believe that Gus is a suspect.”

“Everyone’s a suspect, O’Hara,” Lassiter said grimly, but at her expression (profound disappointment in him) he relented to add “it’s probably not Guster, though. I know how much he hates dead bodies.”

Gus had stopped at the door with Sofia to hear the end of this exchange, and he scowled at Lassiter. “Yeah, that’s the only reason I wouldn’t kill a woman I knew and liked. My distaste for corpses.”

Lassiter shrugged. “Everyone’s capable of murder.”

Gus rolled his eyes. “On that note, I’m taking Sofia home. Shawn, I’ll see you at the office tomorrow.”

Shawn gave a half-hearted wave as Gus left, turning his attention back to the other people in the room. The married couple who owned the home, Callie and Winston, were standing a couple of feet away from each other, both with their arms crossed over their chests. Callie was openly crying, and Winston’s face was tight, like he was holding back tears of his own. When Shawn had first arrived, they had been standing together, Winston’s arm around her, but something had changed since then.

Perched on the edge of a chair near where the body had been lying was an older lady that Juliet was currently questioning; Shawn thought that Gus had said her name was Martina. Looking at her now, Shawn could see that she looked pale and shaken, suggesting that she was genuinely shocked. He put her at the bottom of his suspect list.

That left Mason, who smiled faintly when he saw Shawn looking at him again. “So, you and Gus are partners?”

“It’s strictly business,” Shawn said, “as long as you stretch the definition of business to include our weekly _Magnum P.I._ marathons and the occasional sleepover. It’s all very innocent though. It’s hard to make a move on a man wearing footy pajamas.”

Mason looked intrigued. “Is it you or Gus in the footy pajamas?”

“That’s not the kind of information I’m comfortable sharing with someone I just met,” Shawn said.

“Is it the kind of thing you would be comfortable telling me after I bought you dinner? Tomorrow night, maybe?”

“Could be,” Shawn said, grinning. “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.”

“Spencer, I thought you had gone,” Lassiter grumbled, coming up behind him and spoiling his flirting.

“And miss out on valuable bonding time with you? Not a chance, Lassie.”

“I already told you that you’re not going to get hired for this case, so you might as well leave.”

“Why am I being punished because Gus is a giant nerd?” Shawn demanded. “I’ve never met these people before! I’m not a suspect, and the spirits are insisting that I investigate. You don’t want to thwart the spirits, Lassie. You’ll end up with all of your shoelaces tied together again.”

“That was you?” Lassiter snapped, then shook his head. “Of course it was. You can tell the ‘spirits’ that it’s a potential conflict of interest for you to work on this case, and that if they break into my house again, I’m bringing them up on charges.”

Shawn tried not to grin, really he did, but he couldn’t help himself. “The spirits are pleased that you believe in them now, Lassie, but would like to point out that they aren’t bound by your puny human laws concerning breaking and entering, and that really no breaking took place anyway, and there’s no law against entering.”

Lassiter pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed tiredly. “Spencer, leave my crime scene before I have McNab remove you by force.”

“Crime scene hog,” Shawn muttered, but started for the door, pausing only to hand Mason a Psych business card. “You can call me whether you think of anything relevant to the case or not.”

The next morning when Shawn arrived at the Psych office, Gus was already there.

“We’re taking this case, Shawn,” Gus said before Shawn could even sit down.

“Okay,” Shawn said agreeably.

“I liked Hazel. Sure, she could be a little snooty sometimes, but she was a Harry Potter fan, and she was Team Peeta, and she and I agreed that the Keira Knightley version of _Pride & Prejudice_ was good. I know the miniseries was more faithful, and no one is arguing that Colin Firth isn’t –”

“Gus,” Shawn interrupted, “you have to stop talking now while I still have a sliver of respect for you. Of course we’re taking this case! Don’t be the smell that lingers after you burn a bag of popcorn in the microwave.”

“That was your fault, Shawn! You set the microwave to ‘defrost’.”

Shawn chose to ignore that, mostly because it was true.

“Okay, tell me about the people in your book club. Let’s start with the lovely lady you took home yesterday.”

“That would be Sofia Markos. She works at the Read ‘Em on the Cheap used bookstore. Hazel had a part-time job there too, because her husband was away on business a lot, and she said she liked to keep busy while he was gone.”

“Were Sofia and Hazel friends?” Shawn asked, tossing the Nerf football he kept on his desk to Gus.

Gus caught it neatly and returned the throw. “Nah. I guess it was kind of strange that they ended up spending time together socially. I think they both loved the idea of a book club, but they had very different taste. It kind of drove Sofia crazy that Hazel would pick apart her favorite books. I think there was almost a fistfight over _Jane Eyre_. Like Mason said yesterday, Hazel was...well, I certainly wouldn’t call her a bitch, but she was straight-shooter who never pulled her punches.”

“Sounds violent. So, if they weren’t friends, why did they go to the same book club?”

“Well, they weren’t friends with each other, but they are both friends with Callie. She used to work at the bookstore too, until she got a job in a doctor’s office. I think the club was Callie’s idea in the first place; she wanted to be able to talk about books with her friends after she left the bookstore.”

Shawn stood up and went over to the whiteboard, where he started idly sketching stick figures. “Callie works in a doctor’s office? Is that how you got involved?”

“Yeah. I was waiting to meet with the doctor at the office she works in and she saw me reading and we got to talking.”

“And Winston is her husband,” Shawn stated, still drawing.

“Right. They’ve been married six, seven years, I think. One kid, a little boy.”

“So what about Mason? How does he fit in?”

“He was a friend of Hazel’s actually. He works at the same accounting firm she did.”

Shawn turned to look at Gus, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “That dude is an accountant? I always think of them as being, you know, stuffed shirts. Like Lassie when he’s acting especially repressed. So, what’s Mason’s story?”

“Are you asking for the case or for yourself? A woman is dead, Shawn! It’s not the time for you to be picking up guys.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” Shawn said, returning his attention to his sketches. “So, how was Sofia after you took her home? She was clinging to you like a Kardashian clinging to fame.”

Gus glared at him. “That wasn’t the same thing, Shawn! I was comforting her in her time of need. There wasn’t anything sordid about it.”

“Of course not. Wait, you said that Mason was Hazel’s friend?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Huh. Kind of weird that he was putting the moves on me right after they carted her body out of the room. Seems like he would be more upset. I’d wait at least an hour to try to pick someone up if you died, even if it meant losing my chance with someone as hot as me.”

“Thanks Shawn, that means a lot to me,” Gus said sarcastically. “As for Mason, you’re right; it is weird that he seemed so unaffected by Hazel’s death. Maybe we should go talk to him.”

“Already taken care of, Gus. I’ll talk to him tonight, on our date.”

“You have a date with him? Shawn! He might have murdered Hazel!

“I know! This will be an excellent opportunity to question him about that.”

Gus made a show of studying his laptop screen so that he wouldn’t have to look at Shawn. “I thought you were saving yourself for someone else.”

“Uh, I hate to tell you buddy, but it’s a little late for that,” Shawn laughed.

“You know what I’m talking about. I thought you were laying off dating because you’re all hung up on—”

Shawn cut him off before he could say the name. “It’s never gonna happen.”

Gus did look at him now, more than a little surprised. “It’s not like you to be so pessimistic.”

“I’m just being realistic for once,” Shawn said with a shrug. “I still think he’s interested, but he’s never going to allow himself to go for anything he wants. Anyway, Mason and I are just going on a date, not getting married. It’s not a big deal.”

“It’ll be kind of a big deal if he poisons you while you’re sharing nachos,” Gus said.

“Is that some kind of euphemism?” Shawn wondered. “If so, it’s kind of weird. You know Mason much better than I do; do you think he’s capable of murder?”

“Before yesterday, I didn’t think anyone in my book club was capable of murder, but apparently I was wrong.”

“We need to go down to the police station this afternoon. If I know Lassie, he’ll have had a rush job done on the autopsy and the toxicology, and we need to see those reports.”

“Do you think Chief Vick will hire us to work on this case?”

“Nah, Lassie was probably right yesterday when he said she would see it as being a conflict of interest. But if we solve the case and hand her a murderer, I bet we can talk her into paying us for it.”

Shawn finished his sketch on the whiteboard and stood back to admire his work. Gus got up to join him and see what he had drawn. In the center of the board was a stick figure woman (identifiable by her skirt) lying on her back – Hazel, Gus assumed. Around her, Shawn had drawn stick figure book club members. Gus looked for himself first, and found that his stick figure representation was inexplicably wearing a giant wizard’s hat. Holding his little stick arm was another figure, this one more an hourglass than a stick. Sofia, Gus assumed.

“Shawn, why am I wearing a wizard hat?”

“I thought you’d like it. You can pretend you’re Gocart.”

Gus snorted. “You mean Gandalf, and don’t play Shawn, I know you read those books in junior high too, and you saw the movies.”

“I can’t be expected to remember things I read in junior high! Anyway, I only read the first one. Henry found them and got rid of them because he didn’t want me filling my head with fantasy crap at the same time that he was trying to fill my head with cop crap. And I only saw the movies because of Viggo. He was being all manly and virile, and you know I can’t resist that.”

Gus didn’t answer because he was studying the sketch again. “Why did you draw Winston and Callie like that?” he asked, pointing to the figures who were standing apart from each other, stick arms crossed and little round faces frowning.

Shawn shrugged. “That’s the way I saw them. There’s some kind of tension there, something wrong.”

“A friend of theirs did just drop dead in their living room,” Gus pointed out.

“Well, yeah, but that means they should be comforting each other, right? They weren’t though. Do you know if they’ve been fighting about anything?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know. I talk to Callie when I see her on my rounds, but other than that, I only see them at our meetings.”

“You haven’t told me about this lady yet,” Shawn said, pointing to the figure he had drawn sitting down, tears running down her face.

“That’s Martina. She’s from the bookstore too. I think she’s a manager there? She and Hazel were pretty good friends. She likes mysteries: Tana French, Gillian Flynn, writers like that.”

Shawn went back to his desk, putting his feet up and leaning back in his chair. “I don’t care what kind of books she likes, Gus. I just want to know what her relationship with Hazel was like.”

Gus went to his own desk, pulling a notebook out of the drawer. “You want to know about our book club, you should know what we’ve been reading. That’s why we meet in the first place, and it’s what we talk about most of the time we’re together.”

“Hazel wasn’t killed because of what she’d been reading,” Shawn scoffed, but opened the notebook Gus handed him, his brow furrowing as he opened it. “Tell me what I’m looking at.”

“We each take a month and pick a favorite book for the others to read,” Gus explained. “We each try to choose something that we’re really passionate about, so that we’ll have something to talk about. This was Hazel’s month, and she chose _The Handmaid’s Tale_ by Margaret Atwood.”

“TV led me to believe that book clubs exist as an excuse for suburban housewives to drink wine and gossip about their neighbors. Are you telling me that’s not true?”

“No Shawn, that’s not true. Not in this case, anyway. We actually discuss books. This is our reading list for the past two years, including who chose each book.”

Shawn skimmed down the list, looking for Gus’s choices first. He started laughing almost immediately. “ _Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret_ , seriously Gus? Tell me the truth: have you secretly been a ten-year-old girl this whole time?”

“It’s a classic, Shawn! It was one of the formative books of my childhood!”

“That’s because you didn’t know what any of that stuff meant! And because it had girls talking about their boobies.”

Gus narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Everything you say just proves that you read it too.”

“Shyeah. The same time you did, after you stole Joy’s copy when we were kids. I haven’t read it as an adult manperson. That’s just creepy, Gus.”

“I paired it with _Tiger Eyes_ and everyone loved it, Shawn! People wept at that meeting.”

“Yeah, because they were scared of the sight of a grown man reading books meant for pre-pubescent girls,” Shawn said, still laughing. “Okay, this is better. _Something Wicked This Way Comes_. At least that one has a creepy carnival.”

“Will you stop critiquing my reading choices? Don’t we have a case to work on?”

“You’re the one who handed me this list and insisted that it was relevant! Hang on, I have to see what Mason picked. I need to know if he’s into anything too weird for me.”

“There’s a ‘too weird’ for you?” Gus wondered, while Shawn ran his finger down the list, looking for Mason’s name.

“ _Interview with the Vampire_ , _The Stand_ , and _The Corrections_. That seems like an acceptable list.”

“You’ve never read any of those books, so how would you know?”

“I’ve read _The Stand_ ,” Shawn said defensively. “I kept it in my backpack when I was in Thailand. It was useful both as a distraction and as a weapon. And I saw the movie of _Interview with the Vampire_ , which was only sort of terrible.”

“You only feel that way because you thought Tom Cruise was hot as Lestat.”

“THAT is a filthy, bald-faced lie,” Shawn declared. “Brad Pitt, yeah, sure, everyone thinks that. Even you think that.”

“He’s a handsome man,” Gus agreed.

“But not Cruise. Not any time after _Top Gun_ , anyway, and there it was mostly just borrowed heat from standing so close to Val Kilmer. He has shark eyes, and he does the robot run. Just for suggesting it, you have to buy me some tacos before we go down to the station.”

“I was probably going to end up buying you tacos anyway,” Gus pointed out, “and you’re acting awfully defensive about something you claim isn’t true.”

“It’s not true,” Shawn insisted as he started flipping furiously through the pages of the notebook, “and I can’t believe that you would accuse me of anything so heinous. Now, what else is in here, Gus?”

“Just some notes I made about the books we were reading, some literary definitions, stuff like that. Here, give it to me and I’ll walk you through it.”

Shawn held on to the notebook. “I don’t need literary lectures from you now any more than I needed them from Mrs. Palgrave in the eleventh grade. I’ll just do what I did back then: skim over your notes and make a ‘B’ on the test.”

Gus threw up his hands in a gesture of defeat. “Suit yourself, Shawn. Don’t come running to me when you can’t figure out the difference between ‘allusion’ and ‘illusion’.”

“You just said the same word twice,” Shawn scoffed as he started to read. It only took a few minutes for his eyes to grow wide.

“Holy crap!”

Gus, who had retreated to his own desk, smirked. “What? Giving up already?”

“No! This description of the Moronic Hero—”

“ _Byronic_ hero,” Gus corrected.

Shawn ignored the interruption. “It’s Lassie!”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“This definition you have for Byronic heroes: proud, moody, cynical, miserable, arrogant, anti-social, yet capable of deep love and affection. Tell me that’s not Lassiter!”

Gus stood up and snatched the notebook out of his hand to read it again for himself. “I hadn’t really thought about it before,” he admitted, “and I can see why you might think that, but Byronic heroes are also usually rebellious anti-authority figures.”

“That would make ME a Byronic hero. Should I start brooding more?”

“Uh, no. Also, ‘capable of deep love and affection’? That doesn’t sound like Lassiter either.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Shawn said, spinning around in his desk chair, “I think Lassie’s capable of deep and strong affection. Or at least of deep and strong boning.”

Gus scrubbed his hand across his face, like he was trying to erase the mental image Shawn had just provided. “You’re paying for the tacos. I deserve some sort of compensation for being forced to hear that.”

After tacos, followed by churros, followed by an in-depth discussion of whether or not the original _Terminator_ movie was superior to the first sequel, followed by a quick stop by the arcade, they went to the police station.

Gus’s job was to keep Lassiter and Juliet distracted by telling his story about how Hazel had once pissed off Martina by suggesting that Shakespeare’s plays had really been written by the 17th Earl of Oxford. Shawn had barely listened to this theory when Gus proposed it over tacos, although it was apparently a big deal in certain book-geek circles, but he couldn’t see it being a motive for murder. Still, Lassie and Jules would have the information if it turned out that there was anything to it, and in the meantime, he could sneak over to Lassie’s desk and take a look at the evidence.

He grabbed the file folder with Hazel’s name on it, which was conveniently lying out in the open, and sat down on the floor, hoping that Lassie wouldn’t be able to see him from where he was standing on the other side of the bullpen.

The first thing he saw was the toxicology report; Hazel had died from ingesting something called cicuta maculata, which Shawn would have to ask Gus about later.

“Boring, boring,” he muttered to himself, flipping through the folder and seeing only facts about Hazel’s life that Gus had already told him, but he stopped as he came to several pages worth of photocopies of letters that, according to Lassiter’s notes, had been left in Hazel’s mailbox over the past year and a half.

“You Don’t Know What True Love Is,” the first one read.

“DIE YOU BITCH,” the second one read.

“He’s so much better than you are,” read the third. “You’re just too stupid to realize it.”

Shawn was so absorbed in studying the notes that he didn’t realize that Lassiter was standing beside him until the file was snatched out of his hands.

“Ow! I think you just gave me a papercut!” He looked at his finger speculatively, then held it up in the air. “Kiss it and make it better?”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Spencer?”

Shawn continued to sit on the floor, looking up at Lassiter, who seemed eleven feet tall from this perspective.

“I was getting psychic vibrations from that folder from all the way across the station, Lassie! You can’t expect me to ignore that kind of thing.”

Lassiter scowled at him. “I SHOULD be able to expect you to keep your hands off of official police files, but I know better. So I’ll tell you one more time: don’t touch anything on my desk without permission. And it’s safe to assume that I’ll never give you permission.”

“But you might,” Shawn said hopefully.

“But I won’t. Now, take Guster and get out of here,” Lassiter said, and to Shawn’s surprise, he extended a hand to pull him off the floor. Shawn took it, savoring for those too-brief seconds the feeling of Lassiter’s warm, strong, hand wrapped around his.

“When did Hazel receive those notes?” Shawn asked, as Lassiter sat down at his desk and started booting up his laptop.

“Can’t you ‘divine’ that?” Lassiter asked. “I thought you were supposed to be psychic. Why do you always need me to tell you the details of a case?”

“I don’t need you,” Shawn scoffed, “I just like the sound of your deep and manly voice explaining things to me. It makes me tingly.”

Lassiter sighed noisily but, much to Shawn’s surprise, answered his question. “She received the first one more than a year ago, the second over six months ago, and the third three weeks ago. According to her husband, she found the notes on the windshield of her car when she left work.”

“And the husband’s alibi was solid?”

“Yes. He was out of the state for business, and he has co-workers who can confirm that. Now will you leave?”

“Yes, but only because I’m meeting Mason Warfield in a little while and I need to shower and change,” Shawn said, looking at his watch.

“Spencer, unless the Chief hired you without telling me, this isn’t your case. If I hear that you’ve been going off on your own to question the suspects...”

“No worries, Lassie! I’m not meeting Mason to question him. Well...there might be some light interrogation, but he’s buying me dinner, so I’ll probably go easy on the third degree.”

“Buying you...are you going on a date with one of the suspects, Spencer? Are you some kind of idiot?” Lassiter closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Never mind. I already know the answer to that.”

Shawn sat down on the corner of the desk closest to the detective. “Are you worried about me, Lassie? I don’t think Mason is planning on poisoning me tonight, but if he does, I can count on you to avenge me, right?”

“You can count on me to stand over your corpse and say ‘I told you so’,” Lassiter informed him.

Shawn smiled happily. “I knew I could count on you for something!”

“Seriously Spencer, what the hell are you thinking? Don’t you have any sense of self-preservation?”

“I always use protection, Lassie, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Shawn said glibly, enjoying the way Lassiter’s ears turned pink.

“Spencer...”

“Oh, don’t worry so much Lassie. It makes you sound like Gus. I’m going to have a meal with the guy, not go off to an isolated location with him...unless things go really well, in which case we probably should go somewhere private so that we don’t scandalize the patrons of Red Robin.”

Lassiter opened a file and stared down at the page in front of him. “Spencer, I have work to do, and despite what you seem to think, I don’t want to hear about your dating habits.”

Glancing down at the page Lassiter seemed so intent on, Shawn noticed with some interest that it was upside down. “I’m just kidding. I don’t go that far on a first date. No further than third base.”

Lassiter’s cheeks were pink now too. “Third base is…”

“Third base is what, Lassie?” Shawn asked curiously.

Lassiter straightened in his chair, frowning. “I know that the entire world is a playground to you, Spencer but I’m at work and this conversation is inappropriate.”

“Well, maybe we can get together after work and you can tell me your thoughts on third base. Not tonight of course, since I already have a date, but –”

Shawn froze as Lassiter lifted his head and looked directly at him. Lassie’s blue eyes were very, very blue, Shawn noted, as his stomach flip-flopped in a way not unlike the way he had felt riding the Tower of Terror at Disney World.

“Shawn! Are you done? I need to go by my office and pick up some things.”

“We were at the office all morning, Gus,” Shawn said, trying not to show his disappointment as Lassiter turned back to his work.

“Not that office, Shawn,” Gus said in exasperation. “My other office.”

“Fine,” Shawn huffed, annoyed. Gus was going to go off and leave him for the rest of the afternoon, and Lassie might as well have put up a wall between them given how distant he suddenly looked.

Gus was already moving towards the exit. Shawn started to follow him, pausing long enough to say to no one in particular, “That’s cool, I’ll have plenty of time to get ready for my date. I need to rest up just in case someone hits a home run. Later, Lassie.” The last glimpse of Lassiter he caught as he left was of Lassie grimacing like he had just bitten into something rotten.

“I got a look at the toxicology report,” Shawn said as he got into the passenger seat of the Blueberry, ignoring the way Gus was tapping on the steering wheel impatiently. “She was definitely poisoned. What’s circle matriculates?”

Gus frowned. “Um, two random words that you put together? Matriculates means to be enrolled in a college or university. Circle means…a circle. Are you suggesting that Hazel was killed by a college educated circle?”

“Probably not,” Shawn admitted. “Maybe it was cicada macaronium.”

“I don’t think so,” Gus said, disturbed. “I don’t even want to know what insects have to do with macaroni, or how either one could be involved in Hazel’s death.” His brow furrowed in thought, he suggested “Do you mean cicuta maculata?”

“Maybe,” Shawn said uncertainly. “What is it?”

“Cicuta maculata is the Greek name for spotted water hemlock. It’s a member of the carrot family and it grows in a lot of marshy areas in California, so it would be very easy for anyone to get their hands on. It’s extremely poisonous. It’s also called cowbane because it can kill a cow in fifteen minutes.

“Yikes. So, someone traded out some of Hazel’s tea leaves for this spotted water hemlock. Who had access to the tea bags?”

“Everyone,” Gus said. “She left them in the kitchen, and we were all in and out of there before the meeting got started. All someone would have had to do was exchange one of her tea bags for one with the poison in it.”

“Do you remember anyone lingering in the kitchen? Or anything unusual happening?”

Gus thought for a moment before shaking his head. “Callie wanted everyone to see their new refrigerator. Oh, and Mason and Martina had a little disagreement over what kind of wine would go best with the cheese platter.”

“Oooh la la,” Shawn said snootily. “Did you tell them that your favorite wine is the Bartles & Jaymes Fuzzy Navel?”

“That’s not a wine, it’s a wine cooler. With cheese, you would serve a Pinot Noir, or maybe a Chardonnay,” Gus said, ignoring Shawn’s ostentatious yawn. “And anyway, my favorite wine cooler is the Pomegranate Raspberry, you know that. Fuzzy Navel is your favorite.”

“I do like Fuzzy Navels,” Shawn agreed, and sighed. “Do you think Lassie’s navel is fuzzy? I figure the sternum bush —”

Gus wrinkled his nose. “Shawn! No. You know that talking about Lassie’s body parts is strictly off-limits.”

“You’ve never cared that much when I talked about other guys before!”

“That was different. I want to be a supportive friend, but it’s too weird when you’re talking that way about Lassiter. I know him. I don’t want to be thinking about his navel—or any other part of him—the next time I see him. He’ll catch me staring and think that I’m the one with a creepy crush on him.”

“It’s not creepy!” Shawn insisted. “And you can’t get a crush on him, Gus. I have firsties.”

“Uh, no problem, Shawn. He’s all yours.”

“I wish,” Shawn muttered, and shook his head. “Back to the case. So, if everyone had access to the tea bags, then we’re right back where we started. I’ll see what I can find out from Mason tonight, and tomorrow maybe we can go check out that bookstore where everyone worked.”

“I have a meeting I can’t get out of tomorrow morning,” Gus warned, “so you might have to go without me.”

“Your stupid other job is interfering with my investigation,” Shawn complained.

“My other job is not stupid,” Gus said as he pulled in front of the Psych office to drop Shawn off. “It paid for our tickets to that Jean-Claude Van Damme film festival last week.”

“Man, I still can’t believe that they skipped _Street Fighter_ ,” Shawn said. “Hello, Ming-Na Wen AND Kylie Minogue? That’s a dream cast!”

As Shawn opened the door to get out, Gus said “Be careful on your date tonight. I mean, I like Mason, he’s cool, but if he turns out to be a murderer, text me.”

“Will do,” Shawn promised.


	2. Chapter 2

Shawn hung out in the Psych office for a couple of hours, unexpectedly picking up a case from the manager of the nail salon down the street, who asked him to come in and figure out which of her employees was stealing money out of the till. He went in, got a pedicure, and pointed out the thief to the manager. In lieu of payment he accepted a year’s worth of free nail service for him and Gus, which he hoped Gus would be pleased about. Once, when Shawn had agreed to take free square dancing lessons instead of money from the director of the recreation center who hired him to find out if her husband was cheating on her, Gus had snapped that Shawn would have taken magic beans if anyone offered them to him. Shawn was confused, since the magic beans had worked out okay for everyone except the giant in that story. The square dancing lessons hadn’t paid off yet, but he was confident that they would someday.

When he checked his watch after wrapping things up at the nail salon, he realized that it was time for him to go home and get ready for his date. A shower, a half hour spent perfecting his hair, and a change of clothes later, he was at the trendy little pub that Mason had suggested they meet at for drinks and dinner.

Mason was waiting at a table for him when he got there, and as Shawn walked towards him he took a moment to appreciate the fact that Mason was, objectively, hot: blond and blue-eyed, gym-toned and trendily dressed. Unfortunately, Shawn’s taste in men lately seemed to run to tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed men with crooked noses and off-the-rack suits, and his main reason for accepting this date in the first place was to question Mason about Hazel. Still, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t enjoy the view.

They made small talk over appetizers and beer, and Shawn didn’t miss the fact that even as meticulously groomed as he was, Mason’s eyes were bloodshot and his hands trembled slightly as he picked up his glass. Grief or guilt?

Mason asked Shawn about how he and Gus had met, so Shawn told a long, mostly made-up story about rival gangs in kindergarten and segued into asking about Hazel.

“Gus told me that you and Hazel were friends.”

Mason nodded. “Yeah. I know I must have seemed like the most callous person in the world yesterday, flirting with you right after she...it was just that I couldn’t believe it was really happening. I still can’t believe it.”

Shawn put his hand to his head. “I’m sensing that Hazel had been threatened recently. Did she tell you anything about that?”

“Threatened?” Mason said, starting to shake his head, but then he paused. “Oh, well, there were the notes.”

Shawn was a little disappointed; he had been hoping that his fishing might turn up more instances of Hazel being threatened than the ones he already knew about, but maybe he could at least get some insight into how Hazel had felt about the letters.

“What kind of letters?” he asked Mason.

“Oh, just shit about how she doesn’t know what love is, and she should die...they didn’t worry Hazel. She told me that she knew who sent them.”

Shawn perked up in interest. “Seriously? Who?”

“She didn’t say, even when I asked. All she would say is that I wouldn’t believe her if she told me. I guess I just assumed that it was probably Callie.”

“Why? I thought they were friends.”

“They were, except that...well, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Hazel was sleeping with Winston.”

“Whoa,” Shawn said. “And Callie knew?”

Mason shrugged. “I guess Hazel must have thought she did.”

“Dude, no offense, but if Hazel was sleeping with Callie’s husband and still showing up to the book club that Callie started and being all friendly to her face, that was cold-blooded.”

“I know it sounds that way. I guess it was that way. But Hazel liked Callie, liked her a lot. She told me that she loved Winston though, and that what was between them just felt inevitable. And anyway, she told me that she was planning to break it off soon because she felt so guilty about deceiving Callie. More even than cheating on her own husband. She was just trying to work up the nerve to tell Winston.” Mason laughed a little, looking down at the table. “I don’t know, I’ve done some screwy shit myself, so I never felt like it was my place to judge her.”

“I get that,” Shawn said sympathetically, “and besides, if I were being all judgmental, Winston would be even worse, cheating on his wife with one of her best friends. So, if Callie did know, do you think she would be capable of killing Hazel? I mean, it’s pretty much a classic motive for murder.”

Mason laughed. “Have you ever talked to Callie?”

“No, I haven’t actually met her yet. Why?”

“She’s like...rainbows come out of her ass, dude. She mentors underprivileged kids, volunteers at the animal shelter, heads up the committee for cleaner beaches. She’s the nicest, most generous person you’ll ever meet. I can’t imagine her as a killer.”

Shawn could; he assumed anyone that outwardly pleasant was hiding a dark side.

“Look,” Mason continued, “to be honest, I was hoping to not spend the whole night talking about this. Maybe I’m shallow, but I’m trying to not think too much about it. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do without Hazel around.”

Shawn instantly felt somewhat guilty, since he had gone on this date primarily to pump Mason for information and he wasn’t particularly interested in pumping him for anything else. Flirting was fun, and it was especially fun when it led to picking up a guy in front of Lassiter because Shawn was ever hopeful of some indication that Lassie might be jealous, but it was a lot less fun to realize that the guy in question was trying to distract himself from thinking about the death of his friend.

He changed the subject, leading Mason into a conversation about the book club and Stephen King novels and movie adaptations, and before long Mason had lost some of the haunted look in his eyes and was flirting again. Shawn flirted back automatically, but he already knew that they were both going home alone.

The first thing on Shawn’s agenda for the next day was to check out the bookstore and see if he could talk to Martina and Sofia. It was probably a good thing that Gus was stuck in a meeting all morning, he thought, because it would be easier for him to question Sofia without Gus playing protective love interest to impress her. He was silently congratulating himself on not being as easily swayed as Gus by gorgeous distractions when he saw Lassiter a few feet ahead of him, opening the door to the bookstore and going inside. He was wearing his nice blue and white striped tie, Shawn noted with approval, the one that really brought out his eyes.

He followed Lassie to the Help Desk in the center of the store, realizing belatedly that the only thing he had noticed since entering the store was Lassiter’s shoulders. And ass. And, well, the whole area between the two was good, really good, more than worthy of a little obsessing. Fortunately, Lassie hadn’t caught him staring, so Shawn went to stand beside him, clearing his throat loudly.

“Spencer, what are you doing here?” Lassiter asked, sounding more resigned than annoyed.

“I’m here to buy a book,” Shawn said loftily, turning to the clerk behind the Help Desk. “Do you have a copy of _How to Kill a Mockingbird_?”

The clerk’s lips twitched, but she otherwise remained straight-faced. “I think you mean _To Kill a Mockingbird_ ,” she said politely.

“No. I’m not looking for a coming-of-age novel about injustice and prejudice in the South. I’m looking for a book that will tell me how to kill a mockingbird, because there’s one that won’t stop mocking me, and I’m not going to take his crap anymore!”

The clerk laughed, and Shawn knew he had her in the palm of his hand.

“Spencer,” Lassiter said again, but Shawn interrupted him before he could get any farther.

“Do you carry Cliff’s Notes? My friend here is looking is looking for Cliff’s Notes for the Danielle Steel book he’s been trying to read.”

“Spencer,” Lassiter interrupted again, “shut it.”

“What? Those books are really thick, Lassie! There’s no shame in needing help.”

Lassiter whipped out his ID and showed it to the clerk. “I’m looking for Martina Jacobson. Is she here right now?”

“Oh,” the girl said, “is this about Hazel? We were all shocked to hear about what happened. It was so sad. Martina’s here, but she stepped out right before you got here to go to lunch. She’ll probably be back in fifteen or twenty minutes if you want to hang around.”

“Did you know Hazel well?” Shawn asked the girl, whose nametag declared her to be “Erika.”

“Not really? I mean, I’ve only worked here a couple of months. Hazel was awesome, though. She was the one we all turned to when a customer couldn’t remember the title of the book they were looking for, or when someone needed a recommendation for someone. But I didn’t know her well at all.”

“Oh, I bet you know more than you think you do. You see Erika, I’m psychic,” Shawn said, smiling at her as he leaned forward against the counter and ignoring Lassiter’s loud sigh, “and I’m sensing that there are facts hidden in the recesses of your mind that would help us with this case.”

He reached forward and lightly put his finger against her forehead, like E.T. telling Elliot that he would be right there. “Here. It’s right here in your memory. Tell us about the relationship between Hazel and Sofia.”

Erika tilted her head thoughtfully. “They didn’t really get along? I mean, I don’t want to give you, like, the wrong impression, because Sofia is really super sweet. But they just have different styles of working, you know?”

“No,” Lassiter scowled, “I don’t know. Tell me what you mean by that.”

“Don’t mind my grumpy friend,” Shawn said hastily, as Erika’s expression turned slightly fearful. “He was traumatized as a child by _Where the Wild Things Are_ , and being around all these books is making him nervous. He’s worried that a Wild Thing could come for him at any moment.”

Erika gave Lassiter an uncertain look, but answered his question. “Well, Hazel was really driven? She never understood why it would take Sofia twice as long to finish a project as it would anyone else. Like, last week Sofia was supposed to set up a table for the kids department, but she only got it partially done and she and Hazel got into a little bit of an argument about it. Sofia was pretty upset afterwards—when I saw her later that day, her eyes were all red, like she had been crying.”

Lassiter nodded, like he found this piece of information helpful, although Shawn was fairly certain that he didn’t. “Will you let me know when Martina gets back?” he asked.

“Of course, Detective!” Erika burbled enthusiastically, pleased that Lassiter was no longer glaring at her.

“Where’s Jules at this fine day?” Shawn asked, trailing after Lassiter as he stalked away from the Help Desk impatiently.

“She had a doctor’s appointment,” Lassiter said. “But Ms. Jacobson called her this morning and said that she knew something that might be relevant to the case.”

“So you’re here to interview her all by your lonesome,” Shawn said, surprised but pleased by the unsolicited sharing of information. “Don’t worry, I know you’re used to working with a partner. You can pretend I’m Jules if you want to.”

“Am I supposed to pretend that O’Hara had a lobotomy and a sex change?”

“I don’t judge other people’s fantasies. So, what should we look at while we wait? Should I go back and ask Erika for a copy of _Dating for Dummies_? She doesn’t have to know it’s for you.”

“There’s no ‘we’, Spencer. You shouldn’t even be here.”

“Ah, but you haven’t kicked me out, or threatened to arrest me, or grabbed me and pulled me out of the store yet, which from you is practically an invitation to stay. Are you losing your touch, Lassie, or do you secretly want me around?”

Lassiter didn’t reply at first, staring for so long at the shelf of Civil War books he had stopped in front of that Shawn started to think that he was being ignored, so he was surprised to get an answer to his only partially serious question.

“The Chief won’t let me put you in jail for interfering in my investigation, and I know that since Guster is peripherally involved, there’s no keeping you out of it.”

“Jail?” Shawn asked glibly. “Is that your subtle way of saying you’d like to see me in your handcuffs?”

To his shock, Lassiter responded by turning to him, crowding into his space so much that Shawn was forced against the bookcase behind him. “What is this, Spencer?” Lassiter demanded.

“This?” Shawn asked, suddenly apprehensive. “This is a bookcase. Oak, maybe, from the looks of it. Sturdy.”

“Not what I meant,” Lassiter said, one hand braced over Shawn’s head on the sturdy, possibly oak bookcase, so that he was looming over him in a way that Shawn found both disturbing and disturbingly hot. He licked his lips nervously.

“If you’re referring to me, I am a brilliant-yet-adorable psychic investigator with a yen for Dolph Lundgren movies and a dream of creating my own Ben & Jerry’s flavor. How does pineapple with chocolate —”

“No,” Lassiter said, his voice low and serious, his head bent close enough that Shawn could catch the combined scent of cinnamon toothpaste and aftershave, a combination that he had never before considered an aphrodisiac until that very moment. “That’s not what I mean either.”

He was so _close_. Shawn had the no doubt suicidal desire to nuzzle up against him, and he swallowed hard to fight against it. “Ah. If you’re referring to yourself, then I would say you’re a lanky head detective who is currently showing a surprising lack of social awareness about personal space.”

“No, Spencer,” Lassiter said softly, “I’m talking about all the little remarks you’ve been dropping recently. Saying we should go out. Your little jokes about protection and third base and handcuffs. Tell me what this is.”

All Shawn would have to do would be to tilt his head up, and they would almost be kissing. If Lassiter just looking at him the day before had made him feel like he was riding the Tower of Terror, this was a thousand times better, or maybe a thousand times worse, because he had never imagined that he might actually get this far with Lassiter, and now that it was a reality he didn’t know what to do. He was balancing on a precipice, and he didn’t know what would happen if he jumped.

“I don’t know what this is, Lassie,” he stalled, and he really, really hoped that Lassiter couldn’t hear the slight tremor in his voice. “What do you want it to be?”

He wasn’t sure if Lassiter was going to answer him, or pull away, or kiss him. All three seemed equally possible, but he was doomed to never find out because they were interrupted.

“Ahem. Excuse me, gentlemen. Erika said that you were looking for me?”

Lassiter stepped away so quickly that Shawn, who had been leaning forward in anticipation, almost fell on his face. Martina was standing at the end of the aisle, her arms crossed as she looked at them sternly.

“The bookstore is not the appropriate place for canoodling,” she snapped.

“We weren’t...” Lassiter started to say, but faltered at her glare. “Yes, ma’am,” he said weakly.

She squinted at him for a moment through her glasses, but seemed to finally decide that his response was acceptable. “We can talk in the breakroom. Follow me.”

Shawn trailed behind Lassiter, his heart still doing the Macarena in his chest. Inside the breakroom was a table with four chairs around it. Martina sat on one side and Shawn and Lassiter on the other, giving Shawn a better opportunity to study her than he’d had the day before, when she’d been crying after Hazel’s death. She looked like a generic grandma, he decided, with white hair and round glasses and a soft plumpness that would be comforting to hug close, the kind of grandma who would always have cookies in the oven and a sweater to knit. So it was disconcerting that when she spoke, she sounded like Shawn’s vicious fifth grade math teacher, the one who regularly reduced kids to tears for failing to understand long division.

“Officer, who is this young man? I’m certain it’s not Bring Your Boyfriend to Work Day.”

“It’s Detective,” Lassiter said; he had apparently moved on from his embarrassment and now just seemed to be mildly annoyed. “And this is Shawn Spencer, a consultant for the SBPD.”

She raised an officious eyebrow. “Yes, I could see you ‘consulting’ him in the History section.”

Lassiter turned pink but didn’t address her remark. “You called my partner, Detective O’Hara, this morning and told her that you might have some information regarding Hazel Kershner’s death.”

Some of the prickliness seemed to drain out of Martina. “Maybe. I try to mind my own business, Officer, particularly when it comes to other people’s relationships, but a few months ago I saw...” she hesitated, and Shawn couldn’t help himself, mostly because he knew she would be righteously annoyed by his psychicness. He put his hand to his head dramatically, gasping loudly.

“I’m sensing that Hazel had been a bad, bad girl, isn’t that right, Martina?”

She glared at him from over her glasses. “What are you doing, young man?” she demanded, then turned to Lassiter. “What is he doing?”

“I am a psychic,” Shawn declared loudly, “and I am seeing Hazel doing the dirty dirty mambo with someone other than her husband.”

Martina nodded warily. “One night I was leaving work late and I saw her in her car in the parking lot with —”

Shawn interrupted her before she could get the name out. He had always hated that fifth grade math teacher. “Oh my stars and garters, she was with the fourth Ghostbuster!”

Lassiter and Martina turned identical confused frowns in his direction.

“What the hell are you talking about, Spencer?”

Shawn looked between them, not believing that neither of them got the reference. “Come on guys, this is easy. Gus would know this. The fourth Ghostbuster. There was Venkman, Ray, Egon, and...” he left it dangling, hoping that one of them would jump in, but both of them continued to stare at him blankly. “WINSTON. Do I have to do all the work here?”

Martina continued frowning with disapproval (Shawn wasn’t certain she had another expression), but nodded. “That’s right. I saw Hazel and Winston in her car, kissing.”

“When was this?” Lassiter asked.

“About two months ago.”

“Did you tell anyone what you’d seen?”

“Certainly not. It was none of my business.”

“So it didn’t bother you that your friend Callie was being hoodwinked by two people she trusted?” Shawn asked curiously. He hadn’t met Callie yet, but he was starting to feel bad for her; it seemed like half the people she knew and trusted were lying to her or betraying her in some way.

“Of course it bothered me!” Martina snapped, “But it wasn’t my place to get involved. And Hazel was my friend too, even if I disapproved of her choices.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us about Hazel? Did she get along with her co-workers?”

“Hazel was a hard worker, with high expectations. That’s why we got along. There will always be some slackers,” she said with a pointed look in Shawn’s direction, “who resent that attitude. But I certainly don’t know of anyone who would have killed her because of it.”

Shawn frowned. “I don’t know why you’re looking at me. I love hard workers. They save me a lot of work. Speaking of work relationships, what was Hazel’s like with Sofia? I’m sensing that their relationship had a dark cloud over it.”

“Sofia is a sweet girl,” Martina allowed, her mouth puckered as if she were sucking on a lemon, “but a bit high-strung, and not someone who sees the importance of meeting deadlines. I don’t believe that she and Hazel particularly liked one another, but they managed to get along well enough most of the time.”

She looked at her watch and stood up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me Officer, I need to get back to work. If you have any more questions for me, you know where to find me. And,” she added severely, “don’t let me catch the two of you fraternizing in the aisles again. This is a family business.”

“It’s Detective,” Lassiter reminded her, but she was already halfway out the door, so he turned to look at Shawn speculatively.

“She certainly didn’t live up to any grandma stereotypes,” Shawn grumbled. “I wonder if she even knows how to make cookies?”

“You asked both of those women about Sofia Markos. Do you know something about her that I don’t? Is there a reason you suspect her?”

“No, not really,” Shawn said honestly. “But she’s attached herself to Gus, so I’m obligated to check her out.”

Lassiter nodded, accepting the logic in that, and Shawn wondered if there was a way to recapture their earlier dynamic, before Martina interrupted them. He also wondered if he even wanted to do that, or if it would make everything easier to pretend that it never happened.

Lassiter’s phone rang and from the ensuing conversation Shawn gathered that it was Juliet, done with her appointment and ready to get back to work. After he hung up, he looked over at Shawn and sighed.

“Is there any point at all in me telling you to stay out of the investigation, or would I be wasting my breath?”

Shawn shrugged. “I’m an optimist, Lassie, so I would say that anything is possible. Not likely, maybe, but possible.”

“Stay out of the investigation,” Lassiter said, without much hope. “Or at least, stay away from the suspects. One of them is a poisoner, and I’ve never once seen you turn down any food or drink offered to you.”

“Accepting food from people when they offer it to you makes them feel at ease!” Shawn said defensively. “And besides, don’t forget, I’m psychic. I’ll know if anything I’m offered is poisoned.”

Lassiter did not seem reassured by this. “Just…make an effort to be careful, Spencer.”

Shawn blinked at him, confused. “Are you…are you _worried_ about me, Lassie?”

“God knows THAT would be a waste of time,” Lassiter muttered, which did not really answer Shawn’s question. He wasn’t certain how he would have responded—part of him was definitely interested in asking if Lassiter’s concern had anything to do with that moment between them in the History aisle, while another part of him, the part that was mostly made up of chicken, wanted to act like that had never happened. He was saved from having to decide what to do by the breakroom door opening and Erika-the-bookseller coming in.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you guys were still in here. Should I leave?”

Lassiter stood up. “No, we’re done in here,” he said, handing her a business card and adding “call me if you think of anything else we should know about Hazel.”

Shawn followed him out of the store, pausing as he passed by a book titled _Feel the Fear (And Do It Anyway!)_ , wondering if that was supposed to be some sort of sign.

When he walked into the Psych office, he heard voices.

“This is my desk, where I go when I need to ruminate over the facts of a case,” Gus was saying in his “charming” voice, which Shawn had tried to tell him was actually creepy, which meant that Sofia was there with him. They hadn’t heard him come in, so Shawn tiptoed in a little farther, then dramatically cleared his throat.

“And this,” he said, pointing to the bathroom, “is the toilet. It’s where Gus goes when he needs to—”

“Shawn!” Gus snapped, embarrassed. Sofia smiled, looking mildly puzzled as Shawn came in and dropped into his chair, putting his feet up on his desk.

“Hello Sofia,” he said magnanimously. “I am Shawn Spencer, psychic detective. Don’t be afraid. I know it can be intimidating to meet someone that you’ve heard so much about.”

“Hi,” she said uncertainly, while at the same time Gus rolled his eyes in exasperation.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Shawn. I don’t spend all of my time talking about you, despite what you think.”

Now Shawn was the one who was puzzled. “But what else could you possibly have to talk about?”

Gus chose not to respond to that. “Sofia and I had lunch together and I thought I’d bring her by the office so that she could see where the magic happens.”

“It’s not magic,” Shawn scoffed, then gasped and put his hand to his head. “Wait a minute: I’m seeing a kindly old man…a puppet…an annoying talking cricket…”

“Are you talking about _Pinocchio_?” Sofia asked, at the same time that Gus said “I don’t really think this is the right time for a ‘vision’, Shawn.”

Shawn stood up and made his way closer to the pair. Sofia was pretty, petite and delicate-looking, with wide, expressive brown eyes that were watching him warily.

“Gus, Gus, Gus, you know I’m at the mercy of the spirits. It all clicked into place as soon as Sofia said Pinocchio.” In a sing-songy voice, he said “Someone here’s a liar.”

Sofia took a step back, confused, and, Shawn noted with interest, maybe even scared. “What? What are you talking about?”

“I’m seeing you calling in sick to work today, but here you are, hanging out with Gus, in the pink of health.” He paused thoughtfully, looking at Gus. “What does that mean, ‘in the pink of health’? Is that racist?”

“I…I wasn’t feeling well this morning,” she said nervously, “but then I started to feel better, and Gus called…”

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Gus said, irritated that Shawn was messing with his date. “If his nose grew every time he told a lie like Pinocchio’s did, it would reach halfway across the globe by now.”

“Nah,” Shawn said easily, backing off a little because Sofia looked genuinely worried, “it would go further than that. Sofia, don’t get the wrong idea! I admire your cavalier attitude towards work attendance. More people should call in sick to work and have lunch with Gus.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Gus said, reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone, which had started ringing. “I have to take this. Shawn, be nice.”

“I’m always nice,” Shawn protested, and tried to prove it by aiming his most winning smile at Sofia, while Gus went to the other side of the room to take his phone call.

“So, you and Gus are book club buddies, huh?” he asked, sitting down on the edge of Gus’s desk. She seemed to relax a little as he showed no sign of having another psychic vision.

“That’s right. Gus is so sweet; he’s been such a rock through this whole thing with Hazel.”

“Were you and Hazel close?” Shawn asked.

“I had known her for a long time,” Sofia said, skirting the question neatly and looking away. Well, he would give her points for not blatantly lying about her relationship with the deceased.

“You’ve known Gus for a while too, right?” he asked, because in addition to his role as detective, he also had best friend duties to carry out, among which was checking out Gus’s lady friends (not in a pervy way. Usually.).

“For a little over a year now, I guess. I’ll be honest, at first I misjudged him. I thought he was just a typical shallow, cynical guy.”

“ _Gus_? Cynical?” Shawn asked disbelievingly.

“It was dumb of me,” she said with a smile, shaking her head. “I realized when we read _Wuthering Heights_ and he was so sympathetic to Heathcliff and Catherine’s plight that he was a romantic at heart.”

“Heathcliff? Is that the cat who liked lasagna? I could really relate to him myself.”

“No Shawn,” said Gus, who had ended his call and rejoined them, “the cat who liked lasagna was Garfield, and anyway, Sofia’s talking about a different Heathcliff.”

“There’s more than one?” Shawn wondered, before looking at Gus and asking “Do you have to go back to your other job today?”

“No, all I had on tap today was that meeting this morning. Why?”

“I’ve got some work for us. We need to follow up on something Mason told me last night.” Shawn said.

“Some dangerous detective work?” Gus asked, looking not at Shawn but at Sofia, who looked back at him adoringly, “Where I’ll be called on to use my highly trained investigative skills to solve crimes that the police can’t crack and put criminals behind bars?”

“Yeah,” Shawn said, barely suppressing his eyeroll. “That.”

“Have you guys made any progress in finding out what happened to Hazel?”

“We know she was poisoned,” Gus said, “but we’re still investigating what happened. I’ll keep you updated on what we find out.”

She laid her hand against Gus’s arm, gazing up at him earnestly. “Please do. And be careful, Gus. It would be terrible if anything happened to you.”

“I’ll be as careful as I can,” Gus promised, “but sometimes this job means taking risks.”

Shawn couldn’t take anymore. “Okay then! We should get to work. We can drive you home first, Sofia.”

She turned back to him like she was surprised that he was still in the room. “Oh! My car’s just a block away.”

“We had lunch at the café on the boardwalk,” Gus explained as all three of them headed outside, which came as a relief to Shawn; he was beyond over Gus and Sofia’s lovey dovey mutual admiration society. He didn’t get it; he tried to picture himself and Lassie cooing sappy sweet nothings at one another and nearly started laughing out loud; a drunk Lassiter might have once told him that he was astounding, but even his prodigious imagination couldn’t conjure up an image of a sober Lassiter saying anything more complimentary than “adequate work, Spencer.” The sad thing was, even that was something he craved hearing.

“Bye, Shawn. It was nice meeting you,” he heard Sofia say, and realized that he had daydreamed about Lassiter for the entire walk to her car. Well, that was probably a better use of his time than listening to the lovebirds be gag-inducingly sweet.

She kissed Gus on the cheek before getting into her car and driving away. Once she was out of sight Gus turned to Shawn. “So, what are we doing this afternoon?”

“We need to talk to Winston,” Shawn said. “Do you know where he would be at this time of day?”

Gus nodded and started for the Blueberry, Shawn at his heels. “He owns a pizzeria, and I’m pretty sure he spends most of his days there.”

Shawn stopped walking, shocked. “Wait, you know someone who owns a pizzeria? You’re friendly with a man who makes pizza day in and day out and you never once thought to mention it before? Gus! I feel like this might be a turning point in our friendship. It’s like I don’t even know who you are.”

“I knew you’d be like this,” Gus said, exasperated. “Winston’s pizzeria is on the other side of town from my apartment, your apartment, and the Psych office. There’s never really any opportunity for us to order from him.”

“Order from him? I was thinking we could get extra work as pizza taste testers.”

“You think I didn’t try that, Shawn? The first few months I knew him, I offered my services every time I saw him, but he never took me up on it.”

“ _Your_ services?” Shawn asked suspiciously. “Not _our_ services?”

“Once I was established, I would have brought you in! Let’s face it, Shawn, since I have the super sniffer, I would be more valuable as a taste tester.”

He got into the car and sat there for a few seconds, waiting for Shawn to join him. When Shawn continued to stand on the sidewalk glaring at him he honked the horn impatiently. After sulking for a little longer, Shawn finally got into the car.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Gus said. “I apologize for not bringing you in on my completely hypothetical pizza taste testing scheme. The next time I have an idea to scam food from off an acquaintance, you’ll be the first to know.”

“I’d better be,” Shawn muttered, not entirely appeased.

“Why do we have to talk to Winston anyway?”

“Because Mason told me last night that Winston and Hazel were having an affair,” Shawn said, and Gus’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“No way! Winston’s a nice guy, I can’t picture him doing that to Callie.”

“Yeah, well, Hazel must have thought he was nice too, because she was letting him do something to her.”

Gus shot him a sidelong glance. “Do you think he killed her?”

“He and Callie both shot to number one on the suspect list,” Shawn replied. “Mason said that Hazel wanted to break it off, and that she felt guilty over betraying Callie. Winston could have killed her to keep her quiet, or Callie could have found out about the affair and gotten rid of the other woman.”

Gus was shaking his head. “Man, I can’t picture either Winston or Callie doing that, but I guess you really never know people.”

“No,” Shawn agreed. “Like, for instance, I didn’t know you were such a romantic.” He switched to his little girl voice and enthused “Oh Gus, you big, brave, detective! Hold me in your manly, literature-loving arms!”

“You’re just jealous,” Gus declared, refusing to be baited, “because the only thing you got on your date last night was information about the case.”

“That was the only thing I wanted,” Shawn said firmly, back to his regular voice. “I like Mason, but he and I are not the next Huxtable and Chrysanthemum.”

“It’s Heathcliff and Catherine…” Gus pointed out.

“I’ve heard it both ways.”

“…And you don’t even know who those characters are.”

“Well, Mason and I aren’t the next Garfield and Lasagna either, but that’s okay. One lovesick dope in this car is more than enough.”

Just for that, Gus refused to talk to him for the rest of the drive, which hardly seemed fair when Shawn had only been pointing out the truth.

Winston’s pizzeria was a small, old-fashioned looking place with a bell on the door that rang when they opened it.

“Gus!” Winston called in greeting as soon as they walked in. “What great timing! You can be the first to sample my new recipes.”

Shawn didn’t even have to look to know that Gus was holding out a fist to be bumped, and his estimation of Winston rose. Surely a man who would give them free pizza couldn’t be a murderer.

They sat down on the stools in front of the counter as Winston cut slices from two different pizzas and set one in front of each of them.

“Okay,” he said pointing to the one in front of Shawn, “this is sort of a gourmet take on a pineapple and ham pizza, with smoked prosciutto, fresh pineapple, and gorgonzola cheese.”

“Oh my god,” Shawn said fervently, “this is the best day of my life.”

“And this,” Winston said, pointing to the slice in front of Gus, “is my new vegan and gluten-free recipe, made with vegan soy-free cheese, mushrooms, tofu, and a variety of fresh vegetables, on a wheat-free crust.”

“Uhhh,” Gus said, looking down at his pizza with dismay.

There was the sound of a doorbell, and Winston turned away to go into the back room. “Excuse me for a minute guys, that’s a delivery of supplies. Enjoy your pizza!”

“Shawn!” Gus said as soon as Winston disappeared, “there’s broccoli on this pizza! Isn’t there some kind of law against that?”

“If I were you, I’d be more worried about the mushrooms,” Shawn said. “If he killed Hazel with hemlock that grows in marshy areas, he could have picked those mushrooms at the same time.”

Gus fastidiously started picking the mushrooms and broccoli off of his slice, pausing to point at something white. “What’s that?”

“Mmmppppffff,” Shawn said, his mouth crammed with pizza. He vaguely recalled Lassiter warning him about accepting food or drink from any of the suspects, but surely that didn’t apply to free pizza. He swallowed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I think that’s tofu. Here, you should try a bite of mine, it’s amazing…oh,” he frowned, looking down at his plate, “I ate it all. Sorry, buddy. I’m pretty sure that this is karmic payback for trying to cut me out of your pizza taste-testing scheme.”

Gus glared at him, but took a tentative bite of his pizza, wrinkling his nose in distaste. He chewed and swallowed with the expression of a man who was forcing himself to undergo some sort of torment. Shawn started to point out a nearby trashcan to him, but before he could Gus had taken another bite.

“Dude, why are you still eating that when you look like it makes you want to hurl?”

“It’s not every day that I get free pizza, Shawn! I’m not going to let it go to waste.” His face scrunched up as he took another bite.

Shawn nodded understandingly. “That makes no sense at all.”

Winston came back in carrying a box of napkins. “How was the pizza, guys?”

“Mine was amazing,” Shawn said sincerely. “It was as if my whole life, my taste buds had been numb, and today they were brought to glorious, pineapple-y life.”

“That’s great to hear!” Winston said, beaming with delight. “What about the vegan pizza, Gus?”

Gus was still chewing on the last bite. “Mmmm,” he said, unconvincingly.

“Oh good, I’m glad you liked it! I can’t eat it myself, that vegan soy-free cheese leaves a weird aftertaste in my mouth.”

Gus made a faint gagging sound and Shawn patted him soothingly on the back.

“Winston, we haven’t been properly introduced. I’m –”

“I know who you are,” Winston said, as he started refilling the napkin holders on the counter. “You’re Gus’s partner, the detective. You guys are investigating what happened to Hazel, right? Have you found anything out yet?”

“I’m a _psychic_ detective,” Shawn corrected, “and this is very difficult for me to say after you shared with me that delectable, delightful, descrumptious pizza, but I had a vision. A vision involving you, Hazel, and a marabou negligee. You were slipping her the ol’ pepperoni, weren’t you?”

Winston’s hand momentarily tightened around the napkins, squeezing them hard, before he relaxed marginally, his shoulders slumping as he sighed. “Yeah, I guess there’s no point in keeping it a secret anymore. Hazel and I were seeing each other.”

“Dude, how could you do that to Callie?” Gus demanded. “That woman is a saint.”

“She is! She’s amazing. But it can be hard to live with someone like that all the time. I never meant to hurt her, though. I would have done anything to keep her from finding out about it.”

At this, Shawn perked up immediately, putting his hand to his head. “I’m sensing that Hazel had started to talk about breaking it off, but that you didn’t want to give up your filthy, nasty sexcapades.”

“But it was getting harder and harder to keep it a secret from Callie,” Gus said, picking up what Shawn was throwing down, “and Hazel was starting to feel guilty for screwing over her friend.”

“And so,” Shawn said triumphantly, “you had to put a stop to things in your own way. If Hazel didn’t want to keep doing you, then you figured no one else should be able to have her. Plus, you needed her to keep quiet and not tell your wife.”

“Being her secret lover,” Gus continued (Shawn had to restrain himself from breaking out into song), “you knew better than anyone about her special herbal tea bags, and it would have been easy for you to switch out one of her regular bags for a different one.”

Shawn was bouncing on his heels at the excitement of solving the case. “You did it! You’re the killer!”

Gus was bouncing too, equally excited. “You thought you could keep your dirty disgusting affair from Callie if you killed Hazel.”

“So you slipped the hemlock into the tea bags that Hazel left in your kitchen and boom! No more problem,” Shawn said.

Gus preened. “But you didn’t count on the fact that there was a seasoned detective in the room.”

“Or,” Shawn continued, preening just as hard, “that he would have a psychic partn—”

He stopped abruptly as a broken sob tore from Winston’s throat. “Are...are you crying, man?” Shawn asked in horrified disbelief. “You can’t cry! We caught you fair and square!”

“You think I killed Hazel?” Winston asked, his voice choked with tears. “I could never have hurt her! I loved her!”

“But what about Callie?” Shawn asked, trying to ignore the sinking feeling he got in his gut that suggested he was seeing genuine grief from Winston.

“I love her too!” Winston insisted. “She was my college sweetheart, she’s the mother of my son. But Hazel...I had never met anyone like her before. She was so adventurous, so smart. I miss her so much.” He broke down completely then, and Shawn awkwardly patted him on the shoulder before turning to Gus.

“What do you think?” he started to ask, but stopped in dismay. “Gus? Are you crying too?”

It was a rhetorical question, because Gus was openly bawling. “I can’t help it!” he sniffled. “You know I’m a sympathetic crier Shawn. He loved her so much!”

“Three minutes ago you thought their affair was sleazy and wrong and that he was guilty of murder!”

“That was before I knew how much he loved her!” Gus said, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand as he tried to get himself under control. Shawn grabbed Gus by the arm and pulled him a few feet away, turning their backs to Winston to give them a little privacy.

“So, are you saying that you don’t think Winston did it?” Shawn asked.

“No,” Gus said, blowing his nose with a napkin he’d grabbed from the counter. “What about you?”

Shawn sighed. “No. Not anymore.”

“So, were does that leave us?”

Shawn shrugged and turned back to Winston, who had mostly pulled himself back together.

“Okay Winston, say we believe you. Who else would have had a motive for murdering Hazel?”

Winston shrugged weakly. “I don’t know. Some people didn’t like her because she didn’t suffer fools, and she could be very blunt, but she had such an amazingly kind heart. She took care of her friends. For example, a couple of years ago she lent Mason quite a bit of money for an Internet start-up.”

“I didn’t know that Mason had his own business,” Gus said.

“Oh, the business failed. It was some kind of dating site for guys, but Mason didn’t have solid enough tech knowledge, and there were plenty of other sites out there that already did what he was trying to do. Hazel gave him a big chunk of his start-up money, and he lost it all.”

Shawn and Gus exchanged glances. “Did he pay her back?” Shawn asked.

“No. I mean, I think he gave her a little bit at a time when he could afford it.”

“And she never pressured him about it?”

“Oh no, not that I know of. Although...” Winston paused, frowning. “Hazel’s sister was laid off from her job a couple of months ago and Hazel had been trying to help her out. She might have started asking Mason for the money back because of that.”

Shawn filed that information away with interest; another conversation with Mason was going to be necessary. “One last thing, Winston. I don’t mean to pry, but how did you and Hazel become involved in the first place?”

He was curious because people kept describing Hazel as being honest, smart, generous, a good friend. An affair didn’t seem to fit what he had learned about her.

“We bonded over books,” Winston said wistfully. “You saw how passionate she was about the books she loved, Gus. Her eloquence in deconstructing _Wuthering Heights_ , her defense of _Lolita_...”

“It was magnificent,” Gus agreed.

“After one of our meetings about a year ago, I emailed her to ask her to clarify something she said, and things just spiralled out from there. She was lonely. Her husband was away on business so often, and Callie’s always so busy that I was lonely too. I know it’s no excuse, but she and I had so much in common.” He stopped helplessly, clearly on the verge of tears again, and Shawn decided that it would be prudent to leave before Winston (and Gus) resumed the waterworks. Before he could begin to make his exit though, the door to the pizzeria opened and Lassiter and Juliet came in.

“Winston Hawkins, we need for you to come down to the station and...Spencer. Guster. You had better not be screwing with my investigation. What are you doing here?”

“Pizza!” Shawn blurted out, while at the same time, Gus said “ _Rebecca_!”

“Uh huh,” Lassiter said doubtfully. “Do you really think I’m buying that?”

Gus glared at him. “I wanted to ask Winston about something he said last month regarding the theory that Mrs. Danvers’ obsession with Rebecca was maternal rather than sexual,” he said frostily.

“Oh, that’s interesting!” Juliet said, “What makes you think...” she trailed off at the look of disbelief Lassiter gave her. “What? I loved that book in high school!”

Lassiter turned his attention to Shawn. “I know you didn’t come here to discuss literature, Spencer.”

“I could have an opinion on Mrs. Dillpickle too,” Shawn said, insulted.

“Danvers,” Gus, Juliet, and Winston corrected.

“I’ve heard it both ways. But I’m here to order a pizza. I’ll take one of those fancy ham and pineapple pizzas with extra cheese and extra pineapple,” he told Winston. “Throw on some extra fancy ham, too.”

“I’m afraid Mr. Hawkins isn’t going to have time to make you a pizza right now, Spencer,” Lassiter said dryly. “Sir, we need for you to come down to the station with us and answer a few questions.”

“Of course,” Winston said nervously, still wiping at his eyes with shaking hands. “Let me just lock up in the back.” Lassiter followed him while Juliet gave Shawn a concerned look.

“You made him cry?” she asked, pitching her voice low enough that Lassiter and Winston wouldn’t be able to hear her talking.

“Some people find witnessing my psychic process to be very emotional, Jules,” he told her. “He’s really broken up over Hazel, though. My senses are telling me that he didn’t do it.”

She looked skeptical. “I’ll keep that in mind, but Shawn, he had a really strong motive and the means and opportunity to carry out the murder. He can be grieving her and still be the person who killed her.”

“I know. But that doesn’t mean that he did it. Just keep an open mind.”


	3. Chapter 3

After Lassiter and Juliet had left with Winston and Shawn and Gus were in the Blueberry again, Gus said “Are we going to go talk to Mason now?”

“Yeah. He said something last night about working from home today. Do you know where he lives?”

Gus nodded, starting the car. “I helped him move some furniture once.”

“I need to talk to Callie too. She’s the only person who was there that day that I haven’t spoken to yet.”

“What about…oh, you must have gone to the bookstore this morning. That’s how you knew that Sofia called in sick. So, you talked to Martina?”

“Yeah, and she’s a real charmer, by the way. Lassie was there too, because she had contacted the cops to tell that she had information about Hazel’s murder. It turns out that she knew about Winston and Hazel too.”

“Am I the only one who didn’t know?” Gus grumbled, and Shawn shook his head.

“That depends on if Callie knew.”

When they arrived at Mason’s house, Shawn’s senses—his real, Henry-trained senses, not his fake psychic senses—went into high alert. The front door of the house was standing open, with no sign of Mason or anyone else around.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Gus said uneasily as they walked up to the door.

“Thanks, C3P0,” Shawn said snidely, trying to tamp down on his own bad feeling.

“That was Han Solo’s line too,” Gus whisper-argued; something about the stillness around the house made them both want to be quieter than usual. “Luke and Leia also both said it. And so did Obi-Wan in _Episode One_ and Anakin in—”

“Gus, we’re all trying to collectively forget the prequels,” Shawn whispered furiously as he pushed the front door further open. “Mason?” he called, his voice startlingly loud in the quiet of the house, and when there was no answer he stepped cautiously inside, looking over his shoulder at Gus who followed, looking just as unsettled as Shawn felt.

From somewhere in the house Shawn could hear the sound of laughter from a television, and he followed it, passing through an eerily empty living room that was devoid of life except for the episode of _Friends_ playing on the TV. Gus was close enough on his heels that he could feel his breath on the back of his neck.

“Mason?” he tried again, “It’s Shawn and Gus. Your door was—”

He stopped at the entrance of the kitchen, suddenly enough that Gus bumped into him. There was an island in the middle of the room, and from the other side of it he could see a trickle of blood spreading on the floor from behind it.

“Call 911,” he told Gus, panic and horror rising up in him.

“Why?” Gus started to say, but then he saw the blood too and Shawn heard him suck in a breath and pull out his phone, while Shawn carefully edged his way around the island to the other side of the kitchen, careful not to step in the blood. He didn’t usually react to the occasional dead body that he and Gus saw—growing up remembering every detail of crime scene photos that Henry showed him had hardened him at an early age to the sight of corpses—but seeing Mason sprawled out on his kitchen floor, his shirtfront drenched with blood, made him feel sick. Knowing it was futile, he edged close enough to pick up Mason’s wrist and check his pulse.

“He’s dead,” he said to Gus, so that Gus could relay the information to the 911 operator. After he hung up, Gus started around the corner of the island, but Shawn held up a hand to stop him.

“Don’t. You don’t want to see this. I think he’s been stabbed to death.” He looked around for a weapon but didn’t see anything. There was, however, a knife missing from the wooden knife block on the kitchen counter. He scanned the room for signs of any other clues. The only sign of a struggle was a broken glass on the floor with what looked like soda around it, suggesting that Mason had been holding the glass when he’d been stabbed.

“Whoever did this could still be here,” Gus said nervously. “Maybe we should wait outside for the cops.”

“My guess is that the person who did this left the front door open as they were leaving. But yeah,” he agreed, with a final glance at Mason, “let’s wait outside.”

As they started for the exit, Shawn paused, seeing Mason’s phone lying on the counter. Using a nearby dishcloth to pick it up so he didn’t leave prints, he carefully checked to see what the last few calls he had made were. Starting with that morning, he could see that Mason had called the accounting firm that he and Hazel worked for, followed an hour or so later by a call to Callie, who he had talked to for nearly half an hour.

A patrol car had been in the area and showed up just minutes after they went to stand on the lawn. Shawn told them where to find the body, and a short time after that Lassiter and Juliet arrived. Shawn thought about following them into the house, but he didn’t think he had missed seeing any vital clues the first time around, and he wasn’t especially eager to go back into the kitchen with Mason’s body. So he and Gus loitered outside until the detectives came back out to ask them what they knew.

Shawn let Gus tell them about how they had found the body, while he thought back to what he had seen in the house, deliberately avoiding thinking about the body and the blood and concentrating on everything else. He closed his eyes to recall the layout of the kitchen, and when he opened them again he realized that Lassiter was watching him with concern. When he saw that Shawn was watching him back, he pulled him to the side, while Gus continued giving his statement to Juliet.

“Are you all right, Shawn? I know you and the victim were—” he hesitated.

“We went on one date,” Shawn said, before Lassiter could finish the thought, “mostly because I wanted to question him about Hazel. We weren’t anything. But...he seemed like a good guy. I hate that this happened to him.”

Lassiter’s hand was still on his arm, warm even through his shirtsleeve. It was definitely, absolutely wrong, Shawn knew, to be having the kind of thoughts he was currently having right outside of the house where Mason’s body was. Thoughts about how good Lassiter’s hand might feel against bare skin, for instance, and about how nice it was to stand this close to him.

In fact, it was so nice that it was freaking him out a little. So he planted a hand against Lassiter’s chest and gasped “I’m sensing that the weapon that killed Mason is missing!”

Lassiter withdrew his own hand, stepping back so that Shawn was no longer touching him and crossing his arms with a frown. “Not your best work, Spencer. Clearly, the murderer took the weapon.”

“Ah, but did you know that the weapon was taken...”

“From the wooden knife holder in the kitchen?” Lassiter interrupted. “Yeah, I got that. Are the ‘spirits’ only pointing out the obvious to you today?”

“Your face is obvious,” Shawn muttered, which got him a raised eyebrow from Lassiter. “Wait! I’m also seeing that he spoke to one of the other book club members today. You should find out what they talked about.”

Lassiter gave him a suspicious look—well, a more suspicious look than usual. “We found his phone in the kitchen. I’m not going to find your fingerprints on it, am I?”

“Pffft,” Shawn scoffed, “of course not.”

“We don’t even know for a fact that this murder is definitely connected to the other case. Mr. Warfield could have been killed by a different perpetrator for unrelated reasons.”

Shawn raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Come on Lassie, you don’t believe that for a minute. Mason and Hazel were friends. It’s possible he figured something out and tipped off the killer that he was onto him or her. That’s a hell of a lot more plausible than this being an unrelated murder.”

The corners of Lassiter’s mouth turned up into a half-smile. “You almost sounded like a cop there for a minute, Spencer.”

Shawn shuddered. “That’s just mean, Lassie. Puppy baby bottle rockets! There. That didn’t sound like anything a cop would say, did it?”

Still looking somewhat amused, Lassiter shook his head. “No, that sounded like the kind of nonsense that could only come from you.”

Shawn found himself smiling, a little giddy over the fondness in Lassiter’s tone. “You like my nonsense,” he said firmly. “You would be lost without it.”

For some reason, that sobered Lassiter up. He sighed and rubbed his hand across his face. “You need to take Guster and go home, Shawn. If this is the same perpetrator, then the fact that they’ve escalated from a careful poisoning to a violent attack suggests that whoever is responsible is losing control. I know it goes against every single one of your instincts, but you need to drop the investigation.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Shawn said immediately. The memory of Mason’s body was still fresh though, so he added with only a little reluctance “However, Gus and I will give it a rest for the night, and we’ll come by the station tomorrow before we do anything else. In return though, you have to do something for me.”

“What do you want?” Lassiter asked softly, and Shawn suddenly realized that they were standing really close again, not quite as close as they had been at the bookstore, but close enough that he could feel the heat coming off Lassie. It made him dizzy.

“Autopsy results,” he choked out, effectively killing the mood, “and any other clues you discover tonight. You’re going to have to hold the Share Bear, Lassie.”

Lassiter had retreated into stone-faced professionalism again, so quickly that Shawn wondered if he had imagined the tension between them. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” he said, and Shawn was going to consider that a win because it wasn’t a firm no. “Now, you and Guster should get out of here.”

They went back to the Psych office, where Gus made popcorn and Shawn rifled through their DVDs until he found something appropriately mood-lightening to watch, and they hung out for the rest of the evening not talking about the case or finding Mason. Watching a romantic scene, Shawn almost, _almost_ , told Gus about the weird moments he and Lassie had been having together recently, but he kept it to himself for the time being. He wasn’t sure what was going on between him and Lassiter, but whatever it was made him feel jittery and reckless, filled with equal amounts of apprehension and anticipation. It was the way he had felt about Abigail Lytar in high school, and the way he had felt about a river rafting guide named Carlos during a summer he had spent in Colorado, only magnified by about a million because it was _Lassie_.

Gus went home after the movie, though a part of Shawn wished that they could both just stay at the office overnight, where he knew Gus would be safe, even though he thought that it was highly unlikely that Gus was in danger; he was fairly certain that the theory he had shared with Lassiter, that Mason had probably figured out who the killer was and tipped him or her off somehow was correct. Still, if the killer simply had a beef with the book club at large, then that meant that Gus could be a target, and the thought of Gus in any kind of danger made Shawn feel sick—worse even than the time that he had gotten food poisoning after eating a bad chimichanga.

To distract himself, he picked up Gus’s book club notebook, which was lying on his desk, and started flipping through it. It didn’t seem likely that he would find anything useful in the reading lists and meeting notes and literary definitions, but it might give him some insight into some of the suspects, and if not, it might at least put him to sleep.

He was just about to lock up the Psych office for the night and go home when his phone rang. Checking the caller ID, he was surprised to see that the call was from Lassiter.

“Lassie! It’s a surprise to hear from you this late. Is my voice the last thing you want to hear before you go to bed?”

There was an uncomfortable silence from the other end of the line. Shawn prided himself on barrelling right through uncomfortable silences, though the little voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Gus warned him not to say anything stupid or inappropriate.

“Is this going to be one of those calls I can write a letter to _Penthouse_ about? _Dear Penthouse, I never thought it could happen to me, but one night the detective of my dreams called and_ -” (The Gus-voice in his head yelled “Shawn!” and went off in a corner to sulk over never being listened to.)

“Spencer, stop being an ass!” Lassiter snapped. Shawn could picture him, red-faced with annoyance and embarrassment, maybe pulling his tie loose in an effort to relax because talking to Shawn got him all riled up. He licked his lips a little at the image; if he were in the same room, maybe Lassie would push him against a wall and loom over him and this time Shawn wouldn’t lose his nerve, this time he would finally, finally discover what it would be like to close the space between them and…

“Hello? Spencer, are you there?” Now Lassiter sounded a combination of worried and irritated.

“I’m here,” Shawn said a little breathlessly. “Sorry, I just...had a vision.”

“Right,” Lassiter said doubtfully. “Look, I’m calling because you asked for the autopsy results.”

That got Shawn’s attention for a variety of reasons. “You’re actually keeping me updated on the case? Lassie, I’m all aflutter here!”

“You kept your part of the bargain by staying away from the suspects for the night.” He paused, then asked “You have managed to keep your nose out of the case since I last saw you, haven’t you?”

“I’ll thank you to keep my nose out of this,” Shawn said, “but yes, Gus and I came back to the office and watched a double feature of _Clueless_ and _Bring it On_ , and then we had an argument over who was cuter, Alicia Silverstone or Kirsten Dunst. Not cuter in a pervy way, just in a general adorableness kind of way.”

“Alicia Silverstone, obviously,” Lassiter said, and Shawn grinned. He loved it when Lassie played along.

“Right? But Gus is all hung up on K-Dunst because she played Spider-Man’s girlfriend. And he says that Alicia was in the worst Batman movie, which—”

“Spencer!” Lassiter interrupted, “Do you want to hear the results or not?”

“As long as you keep breathing heavy into my ear, I’ll listen to anything you say,” Shawn said sincerely.

There was another tiny pause, but Lassiter apparently decided to pay no attention to Shawn’s blatant flirting. “Mason Warfield was stabbed four times, twice in the chest and twice in the stomach, with a blade approximately seven inches long. From the angle of the wounds we know that his assailant was shorter than him by about least five inches. He had been dead approximately an hour before you found him.”

“Five inches shorter,” Shawn mused. “That rules out Winston and leaves the ladies. Besides, Winston was at his pizzeria an hour before we found Mason, making pizza that I will dream about tonight.” He hoped at least; he would much rather dream about pizza than about finding Mason’s body.

“Right,” Lassiter said. “We released Mr. Hawkins after asking him some questions about his relationships with Hazel and Mason. It’s Mrs. Hawkins that we’re interested in now. She talked to the victim earlier in the day and we have her on a traffic camera going in the direction of his apartment this afternoon. We’ve requested a warrant for her arrest as well as a warrant to search their home for the knife and the poison, but we probably won’t move on it until morning. She doesn’t know that we’re on to her, and she’s got a kid, so she’s not going anywhere tonight.”

“Gus and I will be down at the station in the morning,” Shawn said. “I haven’t talked to Callie yet. I want to see what kind of vibes I get off of her while you’re questioning her.”

“You can WATCH,” Lassiter allowed, “but you’re not to ask her any questions yourself.”

“Not even about what kind of conditioner she uses? I only saw her from across a room once, but even with that I was impressed by how super shiny her hair was.”

“No,” Lassiter said firmly, “you cannot ask her about her hair, or her manicure, or her shoes, or if she poisoned Hazel and stabbed Mason to death. Understood?”

“You might have to explain it again to me tomorrow,” Shawn said.

“You’re not going to do anything stupid tonight, are you?”

“Define ‘stupid,’” Shawn said, but kept talking before Lassiter could reply. “Nah, all I’ve got going on tonight is a little light reading. Want to come over and help me with the big words?”

There was the smallest delay, almost like Lassiter was considering it, before he said stiffly, “Good night, Spencer.”

“Night, Lassie. Sweet dreams.” He waited until he was certain that Lassiter had hung up before hanging up himself and then calling Gus to tell him about the autopsy results and the warrant for Callie before tucking his phone back into his pocket. With Gus’s notebook in hand, he finished locking up the office and headed for home, hoping for some sweet dreams of his own.

“What the HELL, Gus?”

Gus jumped up and grabbed the stapler off of his desk, brandishing it like a weapon; Shawn sounding pissed was so unusual that he assumed they were under some sort of attack.

“What? What’s wrong?”

Shawn stalked to his desk and threw down Gus’s a stack of books. Gus recognized them as being titles that the book club had read over the past year.

“Where did you get these?” he asked, picking up one of the books and turning it over in his hands. “Did you buy these? You didn’t use my credit card, did you, because I swear to God Shawn, if you did I’m bringing you up on charges. Or I’m at least telling your dad.”

Shawn didn’t pay any attention to Gus’s outrage, a reaction that Gus was sadly accustomed to. “I read these last night.”

“You did?” Gus asked doubtfully, staring at the pile in front of him.

“Well, I read the Wikipedia entries and any dirty parts I could find.”

“Is that why you sound angry? Because you didn’t get enough sleep? Because I’ve told you Shawn, if you don’t get at least seven hours a night –”

“No! That’s not why I’m angry. I’m angry because most of these books are freaking depressing, Gus! Like, take Sofia’s choices: chicks always talk about these books like they’re romantic, but these dudes are all a bunch of creeps! Heathcliff kills a puppy! Rochester keeps his wife locked up in the attic, and I can’t decide if that’s better or worse than Maxim, who killed his wife!”

“Well Shawn,” Gus said, prepared to lecture, “the gothic romance tradition is tinged with horror.”

“These guys,” Shawn declared, pointing at the books, “are a bunch of creepy puppy-and-women killers. There’s nothing romantic about any of them.”

“Hey, you don’t have to convince me. Things got very heated at the meeting where we discussed _Wuthering Heights_. Hazel, Winston, and I all thought Heathcliff was evil, but Callie, Sofia, and Mason all defended him as being a product of his...Shawn, are you even listening to me?”

“Yeah, buddy,” Shawn said, rifling through his desk. “You know I always pay super close attention when you’re talking about your book club debates.”

“Shawn, we’re trying to solve two murders. I would think that you would want to hear about the people involved.”

Shawn laughed. “Come on, Gus, Hazel wasn’t killed because of her opinion of the crazy dudes in the books you read. Ah, there you are,” he said to the bag of Skittles he unearthed from the drawer he was digging through. “Hey, didn’t Sofia say that you were sympathetic to that puppy-murdering psychopath Garfield?”

“You mean Heathcliff. You just said his name literally less than two minutes ago. Unless you mean that Garfield lost it and killed Odie in a fit of rage. And, uh, I might have started arguing in Heathcliff’s favor when I realized that criticizing one of her favorite books wasn’t going to win Sofia over. Anyway, why did you bother doing research on the books if you don’t think they have anything to do with the case?”

Shawn stuffed his mouth full of Skittles and frowned. “Something’s not right. I don’t know if I believe that Callie is the killer. I mean, look at her book choices: _Pride and Prejudice_ , _Anna Karenina_ , and _Anne of Green Gables_. That isn’t the reading list of a psychotic murderer.”

Gus sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I have a hard time picturing Callie stabbing Mason. It’s so messy, and she’s so neat. But it makes sense if she thought that Mason figured out that she killed Hazel.”

“I told Lassie that we would be down at the station this morning because we want to see him and Jules question Callie.”

Gus nodded, standing up from his desk and grabbing his jacket. As he reached for his keys, he asked casually, “So, Lassiter’s calling you and keeping you updated on the investigation? What’s that about? Usually he does everything in his power to keep us away unless Chief Vick orders him to let us investigate.”

Shawn hesitated, uncertain how much he wanted to share, but it wasn’t as if he had ever been capable of keeping anything from Gus. “Remember when I said that I thought Lassie liked me but that he would never go after anything he wanted? Well, I might have been wrong about that.”

Gus’s eyes widened with surprise. “Seriously? You actually think that Lassie _like_ likes you? Just because he’s sharing information with you?”

“Well, there’s been a little more to it than that,” Shawn admitted, “but come on Gus, Lassie letting us in on an investigation is like a normal person buying me flowers and candy…or you know, something less girly. I mean, I would take the candy. But I’d rather have access to evidence and autopsy results than flowers. Who wouldn’t?”

“Lots of people,” Gus assured him, as he turned to go outside to the Blueberry. “Me, for example.”

“You would rather have _flowers_ than evidence? Gus! What kind of flowers?”

They arrived at the station just moments before Lassiter and Juliet came in with Callie, who lit up when she saw Gus standing in the hall of the PD.

“Gus!” she exclaimed, relief apparent in her voice, “Thank God you’re here. I need for you to call Martina and tell her that I’m not going to be able to make it to the adult literacy session this afternoon, so she’s going to have to take over. And could you also call Winston and tell him that I promised to take a jumbo bag of dog food to the animal shelter today? It’s in the garage, he just needs to drop it off at the front desk. Oh! Also tell him that I need for him to send out the email blast to the volunteers for the cleaner beaches initiative. And could you—” she was still talking as Lassiter and Juliet walked her into the interrogation room.

“Wow,” Shawn said. “She’s like a tiny four star general of do-gooder-ness.”

Gus nodded, pulling out his phone. “She can be a little intense,” he agreed, “but it’s always for a good cause.”

“What are you doing? We gotta go in there and listen to Lassie and Jules question her.”

Gus gave him a disbelieving look. “Didn’t you hear her? I’ve got some calls to make, Shawn!”

Shawn shook his head in wonder and went into the observation room. Juliet and Lassiter were still there, watching Callie, who was sitting at the table in the interrogation room. She looked scared, Shawn thought, but then, who wouldn’t under the circumstances?

Lassiter glanced up at him and said sternly, “Remember what I told you last night, Spencer. You can watch, but stay out of the way.”

“Last night?” Juliet asked, intrigued.

“Don’t be jealous, Jules,” Shawn said, “but my number was the one that came up when Lassie decided to make a late night booty call.”

“That’s not true!” Lassiter snapped, practically sputtering with outrage. “O’Hara, don’t listen to him.”

“Nah,” Shawn agreed, “I’m just kidding. It was more like a late night bonding session. We talked about movies, manicures, books…I feel so much closer to you now, Lassie.” He attempted to place his hand on Lassiter’s arm only to be shook off immediately.

Gus joined him just as the detectives went into the interrogation room to question the suspect, shaking his head sadly as he looked at Callie through the glass. “I never would have thought that Callie could be capable of something like this.”

“I’m still not convinced that she is,” Shawn said, turning his attention to the interrogation room, where Juliet sat across from Callie at the table, while Lassiter stood behind her, near the door, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Ms. Hawkins, can you tell us when the last time you saw Mason Warfield was?”

Callie folded her hands neatly on the table in front of her. “Of course. I saw Mason yesterday, at his house. I was on my lunch break, so it was around 12:30 or so, I believe.”

Juliet nodded, making a note in the file in front of her. “And what did the two of you talk about?”

“Mason called me yesterday morning and told me that he wanted to talk to me. He said that he wanted to apologize to me for any part he played in keeping my husband’s affair with Hazel a secret.”

Juliet set down her pen and leaned forward, asking gently, “Did you know about the affair?”

Callie shook her head. “Not until the day Hazel died. We were all in shock, of course, but I could tell that there was something else going on with Winston. He told me that he loved her before her body had even been taken away.” She seemed to shrink in on her herself, crossing her arms tightly across her chest. “I had no idea before that.”

“I imagine you were furious,” Juliet said.

“I was _hurt_ ,” Callie corrected.

“So you expect us to believe that you didn’t know that your husband was sleeping with your best friend for the past six months?” Lassiter asked bluntly.

“I didn’t!” Callie insisted.

“Or,” Lassiter continued relentlessly, “to believe that you didn’t poison Hazel out of the anger and jealousy that came from knowing that you had been betrayed?”

Callie’s voice shook when she replied. “I did not kill Hazel. I could not kill anyone, much less anyone I considered a friend. But I’ll tell you this, Detective,” she continued, uncrossing her arms and gripping the edge of the table, “if I were going to kill anyone for betraying my trust, it would have been my husband. He’s the one who stood up in front of a church full of people and promised to be faithful to me.”

Juliet opened a folder and pulled out three pieces of paper, spreading them out in front of Callie. It was hard to be certain from the distance provided by the two-way glass Shawn and Gus were standing behind, but Shawn was sure that it was copies of the threatening notes that Hazel had received.

“Have you ever seen these before?” Juliet asked.

Callie studied them, frowning. “I’ve seen this one,” she said pointing at the first one in the row that Juliet had laid out. “Hazel showed it to me. She said that it was under her windshield wiper blade one night when she left the bookstore. She never told me that she had gotten more, though.”

“Was Hazel worried about the letter? Did she suspect anyone?”

“I think I was more worried about it than she was,” Callie said. “It’s not exactly a threat, but I thought it was seriously creepy. She seemed a little freaked out at first, but a few days later she came to me and said that she knew who had done it and that it was no big deal. I took her word for it, but she never told me that she had received more notes like it.”

The door behind Shawn and Gus opened and Chief Vick came in, a file folder in her hand and a serious expression on her face. “Good morning, gentlemen,” she said to them politely, and then frowned. “Did Detective Lassiter hire you for this case?”

Shawn opened his mouth to try and spin some sort of story that would explain their presence without implicating Lassiter, but he was saved the trouble. The Chief held up her hand to forestall his explanation. “Never mind, we’ll talk about it later.” She tapped on the glass to get the attention of her detectives, who excused themselves to Callie and came into the observation room.

“We believe we’ve found the knife that was used to murder Mason Warfield,” Vick said without preamble, handing the folder she was holding to Lassiter. Shawn edged close enough so that when Lassiter opened the folder, he could see a picture of a bloody butcher knife lying in a trash can.

“Where was this found?” Juliet asked.

“The trash can is located outside of the house where Callie and Winston Hawkins live. It turned up in the search we started conducting this morning.”

“A trash can outside of her house? Anyone could have put it there,” Shawn pointed out. “My senses are telling me that there’s more to this story than what we’re seeing.” Truthfully, he wasn’t sure why he was so uncertain of Callie’s guilt; he had no attachment to the woman and the evidence was stacking up against her. There was just something that didn’t add up.

“The lab is running an analysis on the blood now to find out if the DNA matches Mr. Warfield’s and to see if there are any prints on the knife,” Vick said, disregarding Shawn and his “senses.” “What I suggest you do now, detectives, is let Ms. Hawkins stew for a bit while we wait for the results to come in.”

Gus pulled Shawn aside while the detectives conferred among themselves. “I’m gonna take off, Shawn.”

“Your other job?” Shawn asked, and Gus shook his head.

“Nah. I’m meeting Sofia, but mostly I just can’t watch this anymore. Callie is my friend. I don’t want to watch Lassie and Jules grill her until she breaks.”

“I don’t know, Gus, I’m not feeling this. I don’t think she did it.”

“I hope you’re right,” Gus said, “but motive, means, opportunity…that’s the big three isn’t, it?”

“I guess,” Shawn agreed doubtfully. “But I still think we’re missing something. Hey, did you say that you were meeting Sofia?”

“That’s right. She’s coming over to my apartment—”

Shawn punched him lightly in the arm. “Gus! You sly dog, you. In the middle of the afternoon?”

“No! I mean, we _could_ ,” he backtracked quickly. “A playa is always ready for the game, Shawn. But I told her about Pottering, and I think she’d like to try it. She wants to see my broom before deciding.”

“Okay, I don’t know what most of that meant,” Shawn said, faintly horrified, “except for the thing about the playa and the game. Don’t…don’t say that again, Gus. It’s not good. The broom, and the pottery…I don’t know what that was, but it sounds dirty.”

“ _Pottering_ ,” Gus corrected, “and you do so know what it is, I showed you the pictures!”

“No,” Shawn said firmly, “I’m sure that you didn’t. You’re my best friend, Gus, but I don’t need to see pictures of you doing anything with your broom. Ugh. Weirdest euphemism ever. And if you did show me pictures, they were so traumatic that I erased them from my memory.”

“It’s not weird, Shawn! She’d really like to try it, but she wants to see the size of my broom before…” he trailed off as he noticed that Vick, Lassiter, and Juliet were all looking at him curiously, and that Shawn was barely suppressing a laugh. “Never mind. I don’t time for this right now. Call me later if anything changes with the case.”

Gus started to open the door to leave, but Shawn stopped him, lowering his voice so that the others in the room couldn’t hear him. “Hey, maybe you and Sofia should stick to public places. She’s still a suspect, you know.”

Looking sadly back at Callie in the interrogation room, Gus shook his head. “I think the cops about have this one wrapped up, Shawn. I mean, why would Sofia have killed anyone?”

Having no answer to that, Shawn shrugged and let Gus go.

Juliet went back into the interrogation room to tell Callie that they would be back to ask her some more questions soon, and that in the meantime she should think long and hard about whether or not she knew anything else that was relevant to the case. Shawn wanted to make a crack about “long and hard,” but he was too busy trying to puzzle out why the way this case was shaking out felt so unsatisfying.

He followed Lassiter and Juliet back to their desks, with both detectives giving him concerned (or possibly just confused) looks over his long silence. Before Lassiter reached his desk, he was met by Sergeant Allen, who handed him an envelope.

“This came for you about an hour ago, Detective.”

“What is it?” Juliet asked, looking over his shoulder with interest.

He sat down at his desk, Shawn and Juliet flanking him on either side so that they could see the contents of the envelope. Shawn was just barely paying attention until Lassiter said “It’s a copy of the sealed juvenile record for Sofia Markos that we requested.”

Shawn’s eyes grew wide. “Are you _kidding_ me? Sofia has a sealed juvenile record and you never thought to mention it before?”

Lassiter scowled. “First of all Spencer, I’m not required to share information with you. In fact, I shouldn’t be doing it at all, so be grateful for what you’ve gotten. Second of all, it’s the only blemish on her record. It’s probably some dumb teenage stunt with no bearing on the case.”

While he was forced to acknowledge that this was true, that didn’t mean that Shawn couldn’t read over Lassie’s shoulder so that he could make that call for himself.

“What does it say?” Juliet asked impatiently.

What it said was that Sofia had been arrested for assaulting a classmate in high school when she was sixteen. According to the witness statements in the police report, the victim had made a disparaging remark about a boy Sofia liked, and she had responded by attacking the girl so violently that she had needed sixteen stitches for a head wound.

“Wait,” Shawn said, “am I reading this right? Did she attack some girl over _Howie Dorough_?”

“Who?” Juliet asked with a frown.

“Howie Dorough, the least popular Backstreet Boy,” Shawn explained. “It would be like if I were to go around attacking people who don’t like _Curly Sue_. Sure, it’s a part of the John Hughes filmography, but no one is claiming that it’s vital.”

“Okay, so she reacted in an extreme way to something most of us would consider minor,” Juliet said, “but does this have any bearing on the case?”

“Hold on,” Shawn said, closing his eyes and thinking back to the information he had gathered over the past few days. Something from the questioning of Callie was nagging at him, if he could just...he opened his eyes and looked at Juliet.

“Six months,” he said in realization. “You said that Winston’s affair with Hazel started six months ago.”

“That’s right. That’s what Mr. Hawkins himself told us when we talked to him yesterday.”

Lassiter snatched the case file from off Juliet’s desk and started flipping through it. “The notes,” he said grimly, and Shawn nodded.

“The first one came more than a year ago. Long before Winston and Hazel started sleeping together. Callie would have had no reason to write nasty notes to Hazel back then.”

Lassiter scowled; Shawn knew he hated having his neat theory torpedoed. “Okay Spencer, so if Callie didn’t do it, then who did? Obviously you’re looking at Sofia Markos for it, but what would her motive be?”

Shawn stared down at the arrest report in his hands of Sofia’s juvenile record. What he was thinking was ridiculous, but when had that ever stopped him from pursuing a theory? He closed his eyes again, remembering the reading list for the book club and putting it together with the timeline in which Hazel received the notes.

When he opened his eyes, he looked at Juliet. “Did you guys uncover anything else about Sofia’s past that would suggest that she is prone to any kind of violent outbursts?”

“Not really,” Juliet said uncertainly. “She was kicked out of a sorority in college, but we weren’t able to get a clear picture of exactly why. One of her classmates that we talked to said it was because she had gotten into an argument that apparently turned somewhat heated with one of her sorority sisters over a book. The woman we spoke with said that Sofia had thrown a coffee cup at the other girl.”

“Bickering college girls didn’t seem like much of a lead,” Lassiter said. “It still doesn’t. What are you thinking, Spencer?”

“I’m thinking that I need to call Gus,” Shawn said grimly, reaching for his phone, and was immediately worried when the call went straight to voice mail. He left a message asking Gus to call him back immediately, then sent a text saying the same thing, and when he hadn’t received any sort of reply within the next thirty seconds, he knew deep in his gut that Gus was in trouble.

“We have to go,” he said, grabbing Lassiter’s arm and pulling him towards the door.

Startled, Lassiter stumbled after him. “What? What the hell is going on, Spencer?”

With his free hand, Shawn checked his phone again, ignoring Juliet’s concerned “Shawn? Are you all right?”

“Gus is in trouble. I’ll explain on the way. Hurry, let’s go!”

Honesty was overrated, Gus decided. Things had been going beautifully with Sofia—she was definitely going to go Pottering with him, after saying that his broom looked like it was just the right size for her, and she was admiring his personal library, when she asked where his copy of _Wuthering Heights_ was, since she knew he loved it so much.

He wanted to be honest with her, and beyond that he thought that she might be amused. Flattered, even. So he had given her his most winning smile and said “I have a confession to make: I hated that book. I thought that everyone in it was terrible. I only said that I loved it because I wanted you to like me.”

“What?” she asked, and Gus knew immediately that he had made a mistake. “You mean you lied to me?”

“I wouldn’t say _lied_ ,” he hedged. “I think you’re a beautiful and intelligent woman and I wanted to get to know you better. Come on, let’s go into the kitchen and you can try that wine I was telling you about.”

She followed him into the kitchen, and when he handed her the glass of wine he could see that her forehead was still furrowed in confusion. “Are you saying that you weren’t moved by the passion between Heathcliff and Catherine?”

“Uh, honestly I was kind of creeped out by it,” Gus admitted, then hastened to add, “but that’s not important! What’s important is that we’ve had the opportunity to bond over so many other shared interests.”

“But you lied,” Sofia said, her voice shaking and getting louder as she spoke, “and what do you mean by ‘creeped out’? Don’t you understand anything about love?”

Gus was really, really wishing that he had taken Shawn’s advice to meet with Sofia only in a public place, but it was too late for that now.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he apologized. “It was a dumb thing to do. I wouldn’t blame you if you walked out right now and never talked to me again. Here, I’ll get the door for you.”

He started towards the front entrance, but not fast enough; Sofia grabbed a knife from off of his kitchen counter. “I thought we had something special, but I was wrong. You’re just like all the others!”

Seriously regretting his decision to go into the kitchen with her, Gus started to back away. “Ha ha, no, I was just kidding! I love _Wuthering Heigiiiiiiihhhh_!” His insistence devolved into a scream as Sofia slashed at him with the knife.

“You’re insane!” Gus gasped, as the knife arced towards him again. He had backed out of the kitchen, but unfortunately she had managed to drive him towards a corner. He dodged the gleaming arc of the knife again and grabbed a book off the bookcase behind him, throwing it at Sofia’s head.

“Mason said that too,” Sofia said, ducking to avoid the book, “but I showed him!”

“Yeah, you killed him and showed him that you were INSANE!” Gus said, throwing another book at her, hearing her hiss in pain as _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ glanced off her shoulder.

“I thought you were different, Gus! I thought we had something special!”

Gus threw another book. “And I thought you were sane, but I was wrong!” She was getting closer. Desperately, he hefted another book from the shelf, the heaviest one he saw.

Seeing the title, Sofia stopped in her assault. “You won’t throw that,” she sneered, and raised the knife.

“Aaauggg!” Gus screamed, holding up the book like a shield. The knife went through the book, stopping centimeters short of Gus’s face. Shocked and furious, he pushed forward, slamming the book into Sofia’s face. She stumbled back, just as the door burst open and Lassiter stormed in, Juliet and Shawn right on his heels.

“Drop your weapon!” Lassiter shouted at Sofia, who reluctantly did so, while Shawn rushed over to Gus.

“Buddy, are you hurt? Are you okay?”

Gus stared down at the book still in his hands, horrified. “She stabbed my first edition _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_! No, I am not okay!”

A few feet away, Juliet paused in the process of cuffing Sofia. “Gus, weren’t millions of first editions of that book printed? It’s not worth anything, is it?”

“Not worth anything?” Gus mumbled, smoothing a hand over the formerly flawless cover. Harry now had a gaping hole right through his head; Sofia had managed to do what Voldemort couldn’t.

“Gus, don’t go catatonic,” Shawn said worriedly. “We’ll buy you a new copy with the money we get paid for this case.”

Lassiter frowned. “Were you ever officially hired for this case?”

Shawn flashed an irritated look in his direction, but kept his attention on Gus. “Think of it this way, Gus: Harry Potter saved your life!”

Gus brightened slightly. “That’s true. Well, it makes sense. He IS a hero, Shawn.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Shawn said, suppressing his eye roll. “Seriously, are you all right? She didn’t hurt you, did she?”

Gus flicked his thumb across his nose, attempting to affect a position of unruffled cool. “Course not. I knew she was the killer all along. My plan to expose her worked perfectly.”

Shawn patted him on the shoulder. “Sure it did, buddy,” he said soothingly, because he figured it was his job as best friend to be supportive right now. Making fun of Gus could come later.

“Gus, is that really a Red Phantom #2?” Juliet asked, pointing to the framed comic book sitting on the top shelf of his bookcase. “I read that there were less than 100 copies of that issue printed.”

Gus nodded eagerly, temporarily forgetting his brush with death. “You’ll never believe, I found that in a comic book shop in Fresno—”

“O’Hara!” Lassiter barked, gesturing at Sofia, who was handcuffed and weeping softly, which would have made Shawn feel terrible under different circumstances, circumstances that did not involve her trying to kill Gus.”We have work to do here. You can talk about funny books with Guster another time.”

“Funny books?” Juliet echoed, amused. “What century are you from, Carlton?”

“You should come over some time and check out my collection,” Gus said to her, and Shawn made a note to himself to ask Gus if he was just being friendly with a fellow comic book enthusiast or if he was coming on to Jules.

“Hey Lassie,” Shawn called, as Lassiter and Juliet started to herd Sofia out of the apartment, “throw the book at her! Oh wait, I guess Gus already took care of that.”

Gus gave him a fistbump, Lassiter gave him an exasperated eyeroll, and Juliet looked like she was trying not to laugh. Shawn grinned, pleased with the successful resolution of another case.

“So how did you put it all together?” Gus asked him the next day, as they sat at their respective desks in the Psych office eating pizza. Winston had sent over one of his extra large gourmet pineapple-and-ham pizzas as a thank you for clearing both him and Callie of suspicion (he had sent one of the vegan pizzas as well, which Shawn gave to the employees of the health food store a block away). “When did you realize that Sofia was the killer?”

Shawn had spent the afternoon of the day before at the police station listening to Sofia give her confession; Gus had given his statement to the police and then offered to drive Callie home while Winston, trying to get back into his wife’s good graces, took her place teaching the adult literacy group with Martina.

“It was the notes,” Shawn explained. “After I realized that Hazel found the first one long before her affair with Winston started, I did what you told me to do in the first place and thought about the book club, and your reading list.”

“I TOLD you the answer was in there somewhere!” Gus said triumphantly.

“If only you’d been that insightful when you decided to romantically pursue a homicidal maniac.”

Gus bit into his pizza furiously but didn’t argue, just waved a hand for Shawn to continue.

“The notes all came in the weeks right after you guys read Sofia’s choices for the club. So, the week after your meeting on _Jane Eerie_ —”

“ _Jane Eyre_ ,” Gus corrected.

“I’ve heard it both ways. Anyway, about a week after that meeting is when Hazel got the ‘you don’t know what true love is’ note on her windshield. And after the _Withering Heights_ meeting is when she got the one that said ‘die you bitch.’ Sofia has a real thing for that Heathcliff dude.”

“It’s _Wuthering Heights_ , and,” Gus said warningly as Shawn opened his mouth, “if you say that you’ve heard it both ways I’m taking away the rest of this pizza and not letting you have another piece.”

Shawn’s eyes narrowed in displeasure, but he didn’t argue. “What I didn’t know until yesterday was that our little Sofia has a history of lashing out at people who dislike the things she loves passionately. As far as she was concerned, it was even worse coming from Hazel, who, in her opinion, gave her a hard time at work too. She learned from a nature guide at the bookstore what kind of poison she could obtain easily that she could hide in a tea bag, and she found a way to stop Hazel from ever criticizing her or anything she loved ever again.”

“Okay, but what about Mason? He was on her side during the great Heathcliff debate during our meeting!”

Shawn studied his pizza, his appetite diminishing as he thought about Mason. “That was my fault,” he said quietly. “That day that she came by the office, I said something in front of her about Mason giving me some information about the case the night before. She was scared that Hazel had told Mason that Sofia was the one responsible for the notes, and that he was on to her. She thought I might be investigating her. When she went to his place and started asking questions, he did put two and two together. When he accused her, she snapped and killed him.”

“Shawn, that is not your fault,” Gus said. “Sofia is the only one responsible for what happened to Mason.”

Shawn shrugged, not convinced. “Yeah, I know.”

To change the subject, Gus asked “What are your plans for this afternoon? I was thinking of hitting the bookstore and replacing the books that got damaged yesterday. Want to come with me?”

“No, I’ve got something to take care of this afternoon,” Shawn said, but when Gus asked what it was, Shawn just shook his head and smiled.

Lassiter got home early that day, which Shawn, who was waiting on the steps outside of his apartment, had been hoping for. He hopped to his feet, setting down the book he had been reading while he waited, and put some his newfound literary knowledge to use.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a snarky psychic in possession of a perfect head of hair must be in want of a grouchy detective to call his own.”

Lassiter’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What are you doing here? And what the hell are you babbling about now, Spencer?”

Shawn eased up to him, and was pleased when Lassiter held his ground and didn’t back away. Of course, Lassiter hadn’t been the one running away from this for a while, Shawn realized now; he had been waiting patiently for Shawn to catch up to him.

“Don’t you recognize literature when you hear it?” Shawn asked. Being this close to Lassie made him feel giddy. Drunk. Hopeful.

“Is that what that was?” Lassiter asked. His earlier confusion had melted into an expression that Shawn didn’t recognize right away. It was possible that Lassie was a little hopeful himself.

“It was pure poetry,” Shawn assured him, tipping his head back a little so that he could look Lassie in the eye. “A few days ago you asked me what this was between us, and I asked you what you wanted it to be, but we were interrupted before you could answer. So, I’m asking again.” He put his hand against Lassiter’s shoulder, feeling the tension coiled underneath his skin. “What do you want this to be?”

Shawn’s breath caught in his throat as Lassiter looked away from him, gazing briefly down at the ground between them, his eyelashes inky against the pallor of his skin. Shawn’s heart thumped madly in his chest while he waited for Lassiter’s reply.

His answer came in the form of action, as was fitting for Lassiter. He met Shawn’s eyes again, nothing but certainty in his expression, and with no hesitation whatsoever he leaned forward and kissed him.

“And they all lived happily ever after,” Shawn proclaimed breathlessly when they finally broke apart.

Lassiter tried to smirk, but at the moment he couldn’t stop grinning. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Spencer.”

Shawn kissed him again, sliding a hand into Lassiter’s hair and pressing as close as he could while they were still standing and fully clothed.

“I don’t know,” he said a few minutes later, “I definitely see a happy ending in my immediate future.”

“Spencer!” Lassiter groaned, but he was laughing, and taking Shawn by the hand, he led Shawn into his home, ready to start the next chapter of their story. 


End file.
